essay about the importance of internet

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Essay on Importance of Internet: Samples for Students

Updated on
Nov 23, 2023

Internet is not just a need or luxury, it has become a household necessity. It was used as a source of entertainment but now it is impossible to work in offices or study without the Internet. When the global pandemic locked everyone in their house, it became an important medium to connect, study and work. Students were able to study without the risk of catching COVID-19 because of the Internet. The importance of the internet is also a common topic in various entrance exams such as SAT , TOEFL , and UPSC . In this blog, you will learn how to write an essay on the importance of the Internet.

This Blog Includes:

Tips to write the perfect essay on internet, sample 1 of essay on the importance of the internet (100 words), sample essay 2 – importance of the internet (150 words), sample essay 3 on use of internet for student (300 words).

Nikita Puri

Nikita is a creative writer and editor, who is always ready to learn new skills. She has great knowledge about study abroad universities, researching and writing blogs about them. Being a perfectionist, she has a habit of keeping her tasks complete on time before the OCD hits her. When Nikita is not busy working, you can find her eating while binge-watching The office. Also, she breathes music. She has done her bachelor's from Delhi University and her master's from Jamia Millia Islamia.

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Essay on Internet Uses For Students

500 + words internet essay.

The internet is described as a global network of computer systems interconnected and following the internet security protocol. However, have you ever considered why the internet is important? This 500+ Words Essay on internet advantages and disadvantages will help students ace essay writing during exams.

A combination of high-end science and advanced technology, the internet is a viral invention. Here, in an essay on the internet, students can learn about the uses and impact of the internet.

Why the Internet Is Important

The internet has undergone significant development from the time of its birth to the present. Over a period of time, the internet has become more interactive and user-friendly. It has also helped man in day-to-day transactions and interactions. The Internet is widely used for numerous functions such as learning, teaching, research, writing, sharing content or data, e-mails, job hunting, playing games, listening to music, watching videos, exploring and finally surfing the internet. Meanwhile, though it makes life easy for people, the internet also comes with a lot of pros and cons. Find the advantages and disadvantages of the internet from this essay.

Essay on Advantages of Internet

Read this essay on internet advantages to know the effects of using the internet. Look for the points mentioned below.

The internet has helped reduce the usage of paper and paperwork to a large extent by computerising offices, schools, NGOs, industries and much more.
Internet helps to provide updated information and news from all over the world
Education, business and travel have been thriving with the growth of the Internet
The internet is of high educational and entertainment value
The internet makes access to public resources, libraries and textbooks much easier
The internet makes it easy by reducing the time and energy taken to do work
Work has become more efficient, quick and accurate
Meetings and conferences are made easier with video calls and other brilliant tools

Apart from all these, as mentioned in the above paragraph on Internet uses, it helps carry out banking activities, exchange information, shop for various goods and more.

Essay on Internet Disadvantages

Despite the use of the internet and its positives, there are also some internet disadvantages. Continuous use of the internet can affect our lifestyle and health. Let us check out the disadvantages of the internet from this paragraph.

Over-dependence on the internet can lead to many health problems
People tend to spend more of their productive time doing nothing but browsing
Even if the internet is now used extensively at work, overuse of the internet could lead to depression
Quality time with friends and relatives is primarily reduced due to the use of the internet
Cybercrime has also increased as internet security and privacy are compromised

Thus, we have seen the uses of the internet and its impact on students and working professionals. While we know that overuse of the internet should be avoided, we also have to acknowledge that the internet has still not been exploited to its full potential, despite its massive growth. In conclusion, we can state that to make internet use more comfortable and pleasurable, school students should be taught about the pros and cons of using the internet, thus ensuring that they can stand up against cybercrime and ensure safety.

Also Read: Social Media Essay | Essay on Women Empowerment | Essay On Constitution of India

Frequently asked Questions on Internet Essay

What is the internet.

The internet is a global system of interconnected computers and this system uses a standardised Internet Protocol suite for communication and sharing information.

What are the top 5 uses of the Internet?

The Internet is mostly used by people to send emails and to search on any topic. It can be used to download large files. People depend on the internet for electronic news and magazines these days. A lot of people, especially the young generation use it to play interactive games and for entertainment.

What is WiFi?

WiFi is the latest wireless technology used to connect computers, tablets, smartphones and other electronic devices to the internet.

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The internet has transformed the world in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. It has revolutionized how we communicate, access information, conduct business, and even how we entertain ourselves. The internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, and it’s hard to imagine a world without it.

At its core, the Internet is a vast network of interconnected computers and servers that allows for the exchange of information and data across the globe. It was originally conceived as a way for researchers and scientists to share information and collaborate on projects, but it has since evolved into a ubiquitous platform that has permeated every aspect of modern life.

One of the most significant impacts of the internet has been on communication. Before the internet, communication was limited by geography and time zones. People had to rely on physical mail, telephone calls, or face-to-face meetings to communicate with one another. The internet has made communication instantaneous and borderless. With the rise of email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and social media platforms, people can communicate with each other from anywhere in the world, at any time.

The internet has also revolutionized the way we access information. In the past, people had to rely on physical libraries, books, and other printed materials to access information. Today, with the internet, a wealth of information is available at our fingertips. From online encyclopedias to news websites, academic journals, and online databases, the internet has made it possible to access information on virtually any topic imaginable.

Another significant impact of the internet has been on the economy and the way we conduct business. The rise of e-commerce has made it possible for businesses to reach a global market and sell their products and services online. Online shopping has become increasingly popular, and many traditional brick-and-mortar stores have had to adapt to this new reality by establishing an online presence.

Furthermore, the internet has enabled the rise of the gig economy, where people can work as freelancers or contractors for multiple clients and projects simultaneously. This has created new opportunities for individuals to earn a living and has allowed businesses to access a global talent pool.

The internet has also had a profound impact on education. Online learning platforms and distance education programs have made it possible for students to access educational resources and attend classes from anywhere in the world. This has opened up new opportunities for people who may not have had access to traditional educational institutions due to geographical or financial constraints.

However, the internet has also brought with it a number of challenges and concerns. One of the biggest concerns is privacy and security. With so much personal information being shared online, there is a risk of data breaches and cyber attacks. Companies and individuals need to be vigilant about protecting their personal information and implementing strong cybersecurity measures.

Another concern is the spread of misinformation and fake news. The internet has made it easier for anyone to publish and share information, regardless of its accuracy or credibility. This has led to the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories, which can have serious consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

There is also concern about the impact of the internet on mental health and well-being. The constant exposure to social media and the pressure to curate a perfect online persona can lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Additionally, the addictive nature of the internet and the constant stream of information can contribute to decreased attention spans and difficulty focusing on tasks.

Despite these challenges, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live, work, and interact with the world around us. It has opened up new opportunities for communication, education, and economic growth, and has made it possible for people to connect and collaborate in ways that were previously unimaginable.

As we move forward, it is important to address the challenges and concerns surrounding the internet while also embracing its potential for innovation and progress. This may involve implementing stronger cybersecurity measures, promoting digital literacy and critical thinking skills, and encouraging responsible and ethical use of the internet.

In conclusion, the internet has had a profound impact on virtually every aspect of modern life. It has revolutionized communication, education, business, and access to information. While it has brought with it a number of challenges and concerns, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live and interact with the world around us. As we continue to navigate the digital age, it is important to embrace the opportunities that the internet provides while also addressing its challenges and promoting responsible and ethical use.

Uses of Internet

In the 21st century, the internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, revolutionizing the way we connect, learn, work, and entertain ourselves. Its multifaceted uses have permeated every aspect of society, bringing about unprecedented convenience and opportunities.

Communication stands out as one of the internet’s most significant uses. Instant messaging, video calls, and social media platforms have transcended geographical barriers, allowing people to stay connected with friends and family across the globe. The internet has turned the world into a global village, fostering a sense of unity and understanding among diverse cultures.

Education has undergone a remarkable transformation due to the internet. Online courses, tutorials, and educational resources have made learning accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Students can pursue degrees, acquire new skills, and access a wealth of information at their fingertips, democratizing education and breaking down traditional barriers to learning.

The internet has also redefined the way we work. Remote collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual offices have become essential components of the modern workplace. This shift has not only increased efficiency but has also opened up new opportunities for freelancers and remote workers, contributing to the rise of the gig economy.

In the realm of information, the internet has become an unparalleled resource. Search engines allow us to access vast amounts of information on any topic imaginable. This democratization of information has empowered individuals, encouraging critical thinking and facilitating informed decision-making.

Entertainment has undergone a digital revolution, with streaming services, online gaming, and social media platforms providing endless avenues for amusement. The internet has not only transformed how we consume content but has also given rise to new forms of artistic expression and creativity.

In conclusion, the internet’s uses are multifaceted and far-reaching, impacting every facet of our lives. From connecting people across the globe to revolutionizing education, work, and entertainment, the internet continues to be a transformative force, shaping the present and influencing the future. As we navigate the digital landscape, it is essential to harness the potential of the internet responsibly, ensuring that it remains a force for positive change in the years to come.

Convenience Due to Internet

The advent of the internet has ushered in an era of unprecedented convenience, transforming the way we live, work, and interact with the world. In our fast-paced lives, the internet has become a cornerstone of efficiency and ease, offering a multitude of conveniences that have reshaped our daily routines.

Communication is perhaps the most obvious and impactful convenience brought about by the internet. Instant messaging, email, and social media platforms have revolutionized the way we connect with others. Whether it’s staying in touch with loved ones, collaborating with colleagues, or reaching out to friends across the globe, the internet has made communication instantaneous and seamless.

The convenience of online shopping has fundamentally altered the retail landscape. With just a few clicks, consumers can browse, compare prices, and purchase a vast array of products from the comfort of their homes. The rise of e-commerce platforms has not only made shopping more convenient but has also introduced the concept of doorstep delivery, saving time and eliminating the need for physical store visits.

Information retrieval has been transformed by the internet’s vast repository of knowledge. Search engines provide instant access to information on any conceivable topic, enabling users to quickly find answers, conduct research, and stay informed. This ease of information retrieval has empowered individuals, making knowledge more accessible than ever before.

The workplace has undergone a paradigm shift with the internet, enabling remote work and flexible schedules. Online collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual communication platforms have made it possible for individuals to work from virtually anywhere, reducing the constraints of traditional office settings and commuting.

Entertainment has also become infinitely more convenient through streaming services, online gaming, and digital media platforms. The ability to access a diverse range of content on-demand has given consumers unprecedented control over their entertainment choices, eliminating the need to adhere to fixed schedules or physical media.

In conclusion, the internet has woven a tapestry of convenience into the fabric of our lives. From streamlined communication and effortless online shopping to boundless information access and flexible work arrangements, the conveniences offered by the internet have become integral to our modern existence. As we navigate this digital landscape, the ongoing evolution of internet technologies continues to enhance and redefine the meaning of convenience in our interconnected world.

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Essay On Internet- FAQs

What is internet short essay.

In the modern time, internet has become is one of the most powerful and interesting tools all across the world. The Internet is a network of networks and collection of many services and resources which benefits us in various ways. Using internet we can access World Wide Web from any place.

What is Internet in 150 words?

The internet is the most recent man-made creation that connects the world. The world has narrowed down after the invention of the internet. It has demolished all boundaries, which were the barriers between people and has made everything accessible. The internet is helpful to us in different ways.

What is internet 100 words?

A. The internet, a recent man-made marvel, has brought the world closer. It has shattered all barriers and made everything accessible. The internet serves us in countless ways, from sharing information with people across the world to staying connected with our loved ones.

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Essay on Importance of Internet

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Internet in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Internet

Introduction.

The Internet is a powerful tool that has transformed our lives. It is a network of computers that allows us to access information, communicate, and perform various tasks.

Access to Information

The Internet provides a vast amount of information on every subject imaginable. It helps students in their studies and keeps us updated with the world.

Communication

The Internet has made communication easier and faster. We can chat, video call, and email anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Online Services

From shopping to banking, the Internet offers numerous services. It saves time and makes our lives convenient.

In a nutshell, the Internet plays a crucial role in our lives. It’s essential for education, communication, and services.

Also check:

Paragraph on Importance of Internet

250 Words Essay on Importance of Internet

The lifeline of modern society: the internet.

The internet, often referred to as the “network of networks,” has become an integral part of our lives. Its significance cannot be overstated as it has revolutionized communication, education, business, and entertainment.

Communication and Information Access

The internet has transformed the way we communicate. Emails, social media, and video conferencing have made it possible to connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time. It has also made information access easier than ever. The vast ocean of data available online has made the internet a primary source of information, research, and news.

Education and Learning

The internet has significantly impacted education. With the advent of online courses, learning has become more accessible. It has broken the barriers of geography, allowing students to learn from the best educators worldwide. Moreover, the internet acts as an enormous library, offering countless resources for academic research and knowledge expansion.

Business and Commerce

The internet has also revolutionized business operations. It has facilitated global trade, enabling businesses to expand their reach beyond geographical boundaries. E-commerce platforms have made buying and selling goods globally a simple process. Furthermore, digital marketing strategies have allowed businesses to target their audience more effectively.

Entertainment and Leisure

Lastly, the internet has transformed the entertainment industry. Streaming platforms have made movies, music, and games readily available. Social media platforms provide a space for sharing creative content and personal experiences.

In conclusion, the internet has significantly shaped our world, influencing various aspects of our lives. Its importance is undeniable, and its potential for future advancements is limitless.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Internet

The advent of the internet.

The internet, a global network connecting millions of computers, has revolutionized the world, transforming every facet of our lives. It’s not just a technology; it’s a phenomenon that has reshaped our societies, economies, and cultures.

The Internet as a Source of Knowledge

The internet has democratized access to knowledge. No longer do we need to physically visit a library to access books or research materials. A vast repository of information is just a click away, enabling us to learn about virtually any topic. Websites like Wikipedia, academic databases, and online libraries have made it possible for anyone with internet access to become a self-learner.

Facilitating Communication and Collaboration

The internet has also transformed the way we communicate. Email, social media, and instant messaging have made communication faster and more efficient. The internet has made it possible to connect with people across the globe instantaneously, breaking down geographical barriers. This has also fostered global collaboration, allowing people from different parts of the world to work together on projects or ideas.

Impact on Economy and Commerce

The internet has had a profound impact on the economy. It has given rise to a new form of commerce – e-commerce, enabling businesses to reach a global audience. Companies like Amazon and Alibaba have revolutionized retail, while platforms like Airbnb and Uber have disrupted traditional industries. The internet has also created new job opportunities, from digital marketing to web development.

Entertainment and Media

The internet has reshaped the entertainment industry. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify have changed the way we consume media, offering a vast selection of movies, series, and music on demand. Social media platforms like YouTube have given rise to a new kind of celebrity – the influencer, who can reach millions of followers with a single post.

The Internet and Social Change

The internet has also been a catalyst for social change. It has given a voice to those who were previously unheard, enabling them to share their stories and mobilize for change. Social media platforms have played a key role in movements like the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter, demonstrating the power of the internet to drive social change.

The importance of the internet cannot be overstated. It has transformed our world, reshaping the way we learn, communicate, do business, and engage with our society. As we move further into the digital age, the internet will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping our future. However, as with any powerful tool, it is important that we use the internet responsibly, ensuring it is a force for good in our world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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MIT Technology Review

Newsletters

The Impact of the Internet on Society: A Global Perspective

Manuel Castells archive page

Provided by BBVA

The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, and with the explosion of wireless communication in the early twenty-first century, we can say that humankind is now almost entirely connected, albeit with great levels of inequality in bandwidth, efficiency, and price.

People, companies, and institutions feel the depth of this technological change, but the speed and scope of the transformation has triggered all manner of utopian and dystopian perceptions that, when examined closely through methodologically rigorous empirical research, turn out not to be accurate. For instance, media often report that intense use of the Internet increases the risk of isolation, alienation, and withdrawal from society, but available evidence shows that the Internet neither isolates people nor reduces their sociability; it actually increases sociability, civic engagement, and the intensity of family and friendship relationships, in all cultures.

Our current “network society” is a product of the digital revolution and some major sociocultural changes. One of these is the rise of the “Me-centered society,” marked by an increased focus on individual growth and a decline in community understood in terms of space, work, family, and ascription in general. But individuation does not mean isolation, or the end of community. Instead, social relationships are being reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects. Community is formed through individuals’ quests for like-minded people in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace, and the local space.

View other articles provided by BBVA OpenMind:

• the way of the dodo.

• A Revolution in Business • Banking, Information, and Technology: Toward Knowledge Banking • Cyber Attacks

Globally, time spent on social networking sites surpassed time spent on e-mail in November 2007, and the number of social networking users surpassed the number of e-mail users in July 2009. Today, social networking sites are the preferred platforms for all kinds of activities, both business and personal, and sociability has dramatically increased — but it is a different kind of sociability. Most Facebook users visit the site daily, and they connect on multiple dimensions, but only on the dimensions they choose. The virtual life is becoming more social than the physical life, but it is less a virtual reality than a real virtuality, facilitating real-life work and urban living.

Because people are increasingly at ease in the Web’s multidimensionality, marketers, government, and civil society are migrating massively to the networks people construct by themselves and for themselves. At root, social-networking entrepreneurs are really selling spaces in which people can freely and autonomously construct their lives. Sites that attempt to impede free communication are soon abandoned by many users in favor of friendlier and less restricted spaces.

Perhaps the most telling expression of this new freedom is the Internet’s transformation of sociopolitical practices. Messages no longer flow solely from the few to the many, with little interactivity. Now, messages also flow from the many to the many, multimodally and interactively. By disintermediating government and corporate control of communication, horizontal communication networks have created a new landscape of social and political change.

Networked social movements have been particularly active since 2010, notably in the Arab revolutions against dictatorships and the protests against the management of the financial crisis. Online and particularly wireless communication has helped social movements pose more of a challenge to state power.

The Internet and the Web constitute the technological infrastructure of the global network society, and the understanding of their logic is a key field of research. It is only scholarly research that will enable us to cut through the myths surrounding this digital communication technology that is already a second skin for young people, yet continues to feed the fears and the fantasies of those who are still in charge of a society that they barely understand.

Read the full article here.

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COVID-19 has taught us the internet is critical and needs public interest oversight

Subscribe to the center for technology innovation newsletter, tom wheeler tom wheeler visiting fellow - governance studies , center for technology innovation @tewheels.

April 29, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has graphically illustrated the importance of digital networks and service platforms. Imagine the shelter-in-place reality we would have experienced at the beginning of the 21 st century, only two decades ago: a slow internet and (because of that) nothing like Zoom or Netflix.

Digital networks that deliver the internet to our homes, and the services that ride on those networks have leapt from an ancillary “nice to have” to something that is critical to economic activity and our daily lives. It is time to consider whether these companies are too important to be left to make the rules governing their behavior themselves.

New rules for a new reality

It is neither unusual, nor untoward that innovators make the rules for the new reality they create. After all, they are the ones who see the future. The last time there was a major technological revolution—the industrial revolution—it was industrial capitalists like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan who made the rules. However, it ultimately became necessary to assert the public interest in the oversight of these activities.

The connectivity and services built by information capitalists have become too important to be left any longer without public participation in determining the rules they follow.

This does not mean that we need heavy-handed regulation like in the industrial era. But it does mean that the critical nature of these digital services warrants public interest representation in decisions about their practices. We know the results of the companies making the rules. Because there was no public representation, our personal information is now a corporate commodity. Similarly, because the companies make their own rules, they are free to hoard that data in order to thwart potential competitors and new services.

The operation of the information economy is different from the operation of the industrial economy. While companies operating in both must invest in the necessary plant and equipment , the economics of how that investment performs differ with the assets used by each. Industrial assets such as coal or ore are exhausted by being use, while information assets are soft, inexhaustible, and iterative. When Ford builds a new truck, for instance, the company incurs incremental costs to procure the glass, metal, tires, and other hard assets. But when Facebook adds a new customer, it reuses the same software that enabled billions of other customers. Similarly, the production of a new truck is an end unto itself. But the addition of a new digital user by a network such as AT&T or a service such as YouTube is the beginning of the iterative production of new data, generated by the use of the product, that can be monetized in new services at virtually no marginal cost to the company.

Four Ideas for Public Participation

Because the economics, and thus the practices, of information companies are different, we must look beyond the industrial era regulatory model. Here are four ideas to incorporate public participation in establishing the rules for the critical services of the information era:

First, do not pretend these challenges can be shoehorned into industrial era regulatory structures. This is not a criticism of the existing agencies whose important work should continue, but a recognition that digital market activity is different. The current regulatory structure, for instance, is built around “who” does something rather than “what” is being done. In the Industrial Age, the networks that carried the product were different from the product itself and separate regulators made sense. In the digital era where the “what” is the manipulation of zeroes and ones, our current regulatory structure has been outpaced and needs to catch up.

Second, digital companies should have a seat at the table in the development of the rules rather than having them force-fed. The National Electrical Code, for instance, is an industry-developed standard that is adopted into law. A “Digital Code of Practice” will similarly allow policies to keep up with technology rather than being tied to old rules. There should be a new federal agency that convenes, oversees, and approves a public-private process that establishes an agency-enforceable Digital Code.

Third, this new Digital Code is not a substitute for antitrust enforcement. The Digital Code is about the behavior of the companies in the services they offer to the public. If a company behaves in an anticompetitive manner, including mergers, that should be the jurisdiction of antitrust enforcers and the Code should not include antitrust exemption.

Fourth, the regulatory oversight needs to be principles-based and agile. Industrial production was a rules-based linear process where each person on the shop floor followed rules for a specific task. Industrial regulation followed the same rigid pattern. In contrast, modern digital products are never finished (think how your smartphone is always updating its software). Digital products are constantly adapting to the changes in their environment. This agile development needs to find its equivalent in agile regulation. Heavy-handed industrial “do this or else” needs to give way to “this is how technology is changing and business practices must evolve as well.”

COVID-19 demonstrated how our networks and the services they deliver are a critical part of our lives and our economy. Something that critical is too important not to have a public interest obligation. At the same time, such public interest oversight must operate in a manner that reflects the realities of the information era and not be stuck in industrial era structures and concepts.

The internet: History, evolution and how it works

The Internet is a massive computer network that has revolutionized communication and changed the world forever.

What is the internet?

Internet invention
How it works

How do websites work?

Speed and bandwidth

Additional resources

Bibliography.

The internet is a vast network that connects computers across the world via more than 750,000 miles (1,200,000 kilometres) of cable running under land and sea, according to the University of Colorado Boulder.

It is the world's fastest method of communication, making it possible to send data from London, U.K. to Sydney, Australia in just 250 milliseconds, for example. Constructing and maintaining the internet has been a monumental feat of ingenuity.

The internet is a giant computer network, linking billions of machines together by underground and underwater fibre-optic cables.These cables run connect continents and islands , everywhere except Antarctica

Each cable contains strands of glass that transmit data as pulses of light, according to the journal Science . Those strands are wrapped in layers of insulation and buried beneath the sea floor by ships carrying specialist ploughs. This helps to protect them from everything from corrosion to shark bites.

When you use it, your computer or device sends messages via these cables asking to access data stored on other machines. When accessing the internet, most people will be using the world wide web.

When was the internet invented?

It was originally created by the U.S. government during the Cold War . In 1958, President Eisenhower founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency ( ARPA ) to give a boost to the country’s military technology, according to the Journal of Cyber Policy . Scientists and engineers developed a network of linked computers called ARPANET.

- The Internet of Things: A seamless network of everyday objects

- What is cyberwarfare?

- Internet history timeline: ARPANET to the World Wide Web

ARPANET's original aim was to link two computers in different places, enabling them to share data. That dream became a reality in 1969, according to Historian Jeremy Norman . In the years that followed, the team linked dozens of computers together and, by the end of the 1980s, the network contained more than 30,000 machines, according to the U.K.'s Science and Media Museum .

How the onternet works

Most computers connect to the internet without the use of wires, using Wi-Fi , via a physical modem. It connects via a wire to a socket in the wall, which links to a box outside. That box connects via still more wires to a network of cables under the ground. Together, they convert radio waves to electrical signals to fibre optic pulses, and back again.

At every connection point in the underground network, there are junction boxes called routers. Their job is to work out the best way to pass data from your computer to the computer with which you’re trying to connect. According to the IEEE International Conference on Communications , they use your IP addresses to work out where the data should go. Latency is the technical word that describes how long it takes data to get from one place to another, according to Frontier .

Each router is only connected to its local network. If a message arrives for a computer that the router doesn’t recognizse, it passes it on to a router higher up in the local network. They each maintain an address book called a routing table . According to the Internet Protocol Journal , it shows the paths through the network to all the local IP addresses.

The internet sends data around the world, across land and sea, as displayed on the Submarine Cable Map . The data passes between networks until it reaches the one closest to its destination. Then, it passes through local routers until it arrives at the computer with the matching IP address.

The internet relies upon the two connecting computers speaking the same digital language. To achieve this, there is a set of rules called the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), according to the web infrastructure and website security company Cloudflare .

TCP/IP makes the internet work a bit like a postal system. There is an address book that contains the identity of every device on the network, and a set of standard envelopes for packaging up data. The envelopes must carry the address of the sender, the address of the recipient, and details about the information packed inside. The IP, explains how the address system works, whileTCP, how to package and send the data.

Click the numbers on the following interactive image to find out what happens when you type www.livescience.com into your browser:

Internet speed and bandwidth

When it comes to internet speed how much data you can download in one second: bandwidth. According to Tom’s Guide , to surf the web, check your email, and update your social media, 25 megabits per second is enough. But, if you want to watch 4K movies, live stream video, or play online multiplayer games, you might need speeds of up to 100-200 megabits per second.

Your download speed depends on one main factor: the quality of the underground cables that link you to the rest of the world. Fibre optic cables send data much faster than their copper counterparts, according to the cable testing company BASEC , and your home internet is limited by the infrastructure available in your area.

Jersey has the highest average bandwidth in the world, according to Cable.co.uk . The little British island off the coast of France boasts average download speeds of over 274 megabits per second. Turkmenistan has the lowest, with download speeds barely reaching 0.5 megabits per second.

You can read more about the history of the internet at the Internet Society website . To discover how the Internet has changed our daily lives, read this article by Computing Australia .

" Getting to the bottom of the internet’s carbon footprint ". University of Colorado Boulder, College of Media, Communication and Information (2021).
" The evolution of the Internet: from military experiment to General Purpose Technology ". Journal of Cyber Policy (2016).
" The Internet: Past, Present, and Future ". Educational Technology (1997).
" Three-Way Handshake ". CISSP Study Guide (Second Edition) (2012).
" Content Routers: Fetching Data on Network Path ". IEEE International Conference on Communications (2011).
" Analyzing the Internet's BGP Routing Table ". The Internet Protocol Journal (2001).
" The Internet of Tomorrow ". Science (1999).

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Laura Mears is a biologist who left the confines of the lab for the rigours of an office desk as a keen science writer and a full-time software engineer. Laura has previously written for the magazines How It Works and T3 . Laura's main interests include science, technology and video games.

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The Internet and the Pandemic

90% of Americans say the internet has been essential or important to them, many made video calls and 40% used technology in new ways. But while tech was a lifeline for some, others faced struggles

Table of contents.

1. How the internet and technology shaped Americans’ personal experiences amid COVID-19
2. Parents, their children and school during the pandemic
3. Navigating technological challenges
4. The role of technology in COVID-19 vaccine registration
Acknowledgments
Methodology

Pew Research Center has a long history of studying technology adoption trends and the impact of digital technology on society. This report focuses on American adults’ experiences with and attitudes about their internet and technology use during the COVID-19 outbreak. For this analysis, we surveyed 4,623 U.S. adults from April 12-18, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Chapter 1 of this report includes responses to an open-ended question and the overall report includes a number of quotations to help illustrate themes and add nuance to the survey findings. Quotations may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. The first three themes mentioned in each open-ended response, according to a researcher-developed codebook, were coded into categories for analysis.

Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and its methodology .

Technology has been a lifeline for some during the coronavirus outbreak but some have struggled, too

The coronavirus has transformed many aspects of Americans’ lives. It shut down schools, businesses and workplaces and forced millions to stay at home for extended lengths of time. Public health authorities recommended limits on social contact to try to contain the spread of the virus, and these profoundly altered the way many worked, learned, connected with loved ones, carried out basic daily tasks, celebrated and mourned. For some, technology played a role in this transformation.

Results from a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted April 12-18, 2021, reveal the extent to which people’s use of the internet has changed, their views about how helpful technology has been for them and the struggles some have faced.

The vast majority of adults (90%) say the internet has been at least important to them personally during the pandemic, the survey finds. The share who say it has been essential – 58% – is up slightly from 53% in April 2020. There have also been upticks in the shares who say the internet has been essential in the past year among those with a bachelor’s degree or more formal education, adults under 30, and those 65 and older.

A large majority of Americans (81%) also say they talked with others via video calls at some point since the pandemic’s onset. And for 40% of Americans, digital tools have taken on new relevance: They report they used technology or the internet in ways that were new or different to them. Some also sought upgrades to their service as the pandemic unfolded: 29% of broadband users did something to improve the speed, reliability or quality of their high-speed internet connection at home since the beginning of the outbreak.

Still, tech use has not been an unmitigated boon for everyone. “ Zoom fatigue ” was widely speculated to be a problem in the pandemic, and some Americans report related experiences in the new survey: 40% of those who have ever talked with others via video calls since the beginning of the pandemic say they have felt worn out or fatigued often or sometimes by the time they spend on them. Moreover, changes in screen time occurred for Americans generally and for parents of young children . The survey finds that a third of all adults say they tried to cut back on time spent on their smartphone or the internet at some point during the pandemic. In addition, 72% of parents of children in grades K-12 say their kids are spending more time on screens compared with before the outbreak. 1

For many, digital interactions could only do so much as a stand-in for in-person communication. About two-thirds of Americans (68%) say the interactions they would have had in person, but instead had online or over the phone, have generally been useful – but not a replacement for in-person contact. Another 15% say these tools haven’t been of much use in their interactions. Still, 17% report that these digital interactions have been just as good as in-person contact.

About two-thirds say digital interactions have been useful, but not a replacement for in-person contact

Some types of technology have been more helpful than others for Americans. For example, 44% say text messages or group messaging apps have helped them a lot to stay connected with family and friends, 38% say the same about voice calls and 30% say this about video calls. Smaller shares say social media sites (20%) and email (19%) have helped them in this way.

The survey offers a snapshot of Americans’ lives just over one year into the pandemic as they reflected back on what had happened. It is important to note the findings were gathered in April 2021, just before all U.S. adults became eligible for coronavirus vaccine s. At the time, some states were beginning to loosen restrictions on businesses and social encounters. This survey also was fielded before the delta variant became prominent in the United States, raising concerns about new and evolving variants .

Here are some of the key takeaways from the survey.

Americans’ tech experiences in the pandemic are linked to digital divides, tech readiness

Some Americans’ experiences with technology haven’t been smooth or easy during the pandemic. The digital divides related to internet use and affordability were highlighted by the pandemic and also emerged in new ways as life moved online.

For all Americans relying on screens during the pandemic, connection quality has been important for school assignments, meetings and virtual social encounters alike. The new survey highlights difficulties for some: Roughly half of those who have a high-speed internet connection at home (48%) say they have problems with the speed, reliability or quality of their home connection often or sometimes. 2

Beyond that, affordability remained a persistent concern for a portion of digital tech users as the pandemic continued – about a quarter of home broadband users (26%) and smartphone owners (24%) said in the April 2021 survey that they worried a lot or some about paying their internet and cellphone bills over the next few months.

From parents of children facing the “ homework gap ” to Americans struggling to afford home internet , those with lower incomes have been particularly likely to struggle. At the same time, some of those with higher incomes have been affected as well.

60% of broadband users with lower incomes often or sometimes have connection problems, and 46% are worried at least some about paying for broadband

Affordability and connection problems have hit broadband users with lower incomes especially hard. Nearly half of broadband users with lower incomes, and about a quarter of those with midrange incomes, say that as of April they were at least somewhat worried about paying their internet bill over the next few months. 3 And home broadband users with lower incomes are roughly 20 points more likely to say they often or sometimes experience problems with their connection than those with relatively high incomes. Still, 55% of those with lower incomes say the internet has been essential to them personally in the pandemic.

At the same time, Americans’ levels of formal education are associated with their experiences turning to tech during the pandemic.

Adults with a bachelor’s, advanced degree more likely than others to make daily video calls, use tech in new ways, consider internet essential amid COVID-19

Those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree are about twice as likely as those with a high school diploma or less formal education to have used tech in new or different ways during the pandemic. There is also roughly a 20 percentage point gap between these two groups in the shares who have made video calls about once a day or more often and who say these calls have helped at least a little to stay connected with family and friends. And 71% of those with a bachelor’s degree or more education say the internet has been essential, compared with 45% of those with a high school diploma or less.

More broadly, not all Americans believe they have key tech skills. In this survey, about a quarter of adults (26%) say they usually need someone else’s help to set up or show them how to use a new computer, smartphone or other electronic device. And one-in-ten report they have little to no confidence in their ability to use these types of devices to do the things they need to do online. This report refers to those who say they experience either or both of these issues as having “lower tech readiness.” Some 30% of adults fall in this category. (A full description of how this group was identified can be found in Chapter 3. )

‘Tech readiness,’ which is tied to people’s confident and independent use of devices, varies by age

These struggles are particularly acute for older adults, some of whom have had to learn new tech skills over the course of the pandemic. Roughly two-thirds of adults 75 and older fall into the group having lower tech readiness – that is, they either have little or no confidence in their ability to use their devices, or generally need help setting up and learning how to use new devices. Some 54% of Americans ages 65 to 74 are also in this group.

Americans with lower tech readiness have had different experiences with technology during the pandemic. While 82% of the Americans with lower tech readiness say the internet has been at least important to them personally during the pandemic, they are less likely than those with higher tech readiness to say the internet has been essential (39% vs. 66%). Some 21% of those with lower tech readiness say digital interactions haven’t been of much use in standing in for in-person contact, compared with 12% of those with higher tech readiness.

46% of parents with lower incomes whose children faced school closures say their children had at least one problem related to the ‘homework gap’

As school moved online for many families, parents and their children experienced profound changes. Fully 93% of parents with K-12 children at home say these children had some online instruction during the pandemic. Among these parents, 62% report that online learning has gone very or somewhat well, and 70% say it has been very or somewhat easy for them to help their children use technology for online instruction.

Still, 30% of the parents whose children have had online instruction during the pandemic say it has been very or somewhat difficult for them to help their children use technology or the internet for this.

Remote learning has been widespread during the pandemic, but children from lower-income households have been particularly likely to face ‘homework gap’

The survey also shows that children from households with lower incomes who faced school closures in the pandemic have been especially likely to encounter tech-related obstacles in completing their schoolwork – a phenomenon contributing to the “ homework gap .”

Overall, about a third (34%) of all parents whose children’s schools closed at some point say their children have encountered at least one of the tech-related issues we asked about amid COVID-19: having to do schoolwork on a cellphone, being unable to complete schoolwork because of lack of computer access at home, or having to use public Wi-Fi to finish schoolwork because there was no reliable connection at home.

This share is higher among parents with lower incomes whose children’s schools closed. Nearly half (46%) say their children have faced at least one of these issues. Some with higher incomes were affected as well – about three-in-ten (31%) of these parents with midrange incomes say their children faced one or more of these issues, as do about one-in-five of these parents with higher household incomes.

More parents say their screen time rules have become less strict under pandemic than say they’ve become more strict

Prior Center work has documented this “ homework gap ” in other contexts – both before the coronavirus outbreak and near the beginning of the pandemic . In April 2020, for example, parents with lower incomes were particularly likely to think their children would face these struggles amid the outbreak.

Besides issues related to remote schooling, other changes were afoot in families as the pandemic forced many families to shelter in place. For instance, parents’ estimates of their children’s screen time – and family rules around this – changed in some homes. About seven-in-ten parents with children in kindergarten through 12th grade (72%) say their children were spending more time on screens as of the April survey compared with before the outbreak. Some 39% of parents with school-age children say they have become less strict about screen time rules during the outbreak. About one-in-five (18%) say they have become more strict, while 43% have kept screen time rules about the same.

More adults now favor the idea that schools should provide digital technology to all students during the pandemic than did in April 2020

Americans’ tech struggles related to digital divides gained attention from policymakers and news organizations as the pandemic progressed.

On some policy issues, public attitudes changed over the course of the outbreak – for example, views on what K-12 schools should provide to students shifted. Some 49% now say K-12 schools have a responsibility to provide all students with laptop or tablet computers in order to help them complete their schoolwork during the pandemic, up 12 percentage points from a year ago.

Growing shares across political parties say K-12 schools should give all students computers amid COVID-19

The shares of those who say so have increased for both major political parties over the past year: This view shifted 15 points for Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP, and there was a 9-point increase for Democrats and Democratic leaners.

However, when it comes to views of policy solutions for internet access more generally, not much has changed. Some 37% of Americans say that the government has a responsibility to ensure all Americans have high-speed internet access during the outbreak, and the overall share is unchanged from April 2020 – the first time Americans were asked this specific question about the government’s pandemic responsibility to provide internet access. 4

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the government has this responsibility, and within the Republican Party, those with lower incomes are more likely to say this than their counterparts earning more money.

Video calls and conferencing have been part of everyday life

Americans’ own words provide insight into exactly how their lives changed amid COVID-19. When asked to describe the new or different ways they had used technology, some Americans mention video calls and conferencing facilitating a variety of virtual interactions – including attending events like weddings, family holidays and funerals or transforming where and how they worked. 5 From family calls, shopping for groceries and placing takeout orders online to having telehealth visits with medical professionals or participating in online learning activities, some aspects of life have been virtually transformed:

“I’ve gone from not even knowing remote programs like Zoom even existed, to using them nearly every day.” – Man, 54

“[I’ve been] h andling … deaths of family and friends remotely, attending and sharing classical music concerts and recitals with other professionals, viewing [my] own church services and Bible classes, shopping. … Basically, [the internet has been] a lifeline.” – Woman, 69

“I … use Zoom for church youth activities. [I] use Zoom for meetings. I order groceries and takeout food online. We arranged for a ‘digital reception’ for my daughter’s wedding as well as live streaming the event.” – Woman, 44

Among those who have used video calls during the outbreak, 40% feel fatigued or worn out at least sometimes from time spent on these calls

When asked about video calls specifically, half of Americans report they have talked with others in this way at least once a week since the beginning of the outbreak; one-in-five have used these platforms daily. But how often people have experienced this type of digital connectedness varies by age. For example, about a quarter of adults ages 18 to 49 (27%) say they have connected with others on video calls about once a day or more often, compared with 16% of those 50 to 64 and just 7% of those 65 and older.

Even as video technology became a part of life for users, many accounts of burnout surfaced and some speculated that “Zoom fatigue” was setting in as Americans grew weary of this type of screen time. The survey finds that some 40% of those who participated in video calls since the beginning of the pandemic – a third of all Americans – say they feel worn out or fatigued often or sometimes from the time they spend on video calls. About three-quarters of those who have been on these calls several times a day in the pandemic say this.

Fatigue is not limited to frequent users, however: For example, about a third (34%) of those who have made video calls about once a week say they feel worn out at least sometimes.

These are among the main findings from the survey. Other key results include:

Some Americans’ personal lives and social relationships have changed during the pandemic: Some 36% of Americans say their own personal lives changed in a major way as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Another 47% say their personal lives changed, but only a little bit. About half (52%) of those who say major change has occurred in their personal lives due to the pandemic also say they have used tech in new ways, compared with about four-in-ten (38%) of those whose personal lives changed a little bit and roughly one-in-five (19%) of those who say their personal lives stayed about the same.

Even as tech helped some to stay connected, a quarter of Americans say they feel less close to close family members now compared with before the pandemic, and about four-in-ten (38%) say the same about friends they know well. Roughly half (53%) say this about casual acquaintances.

The majority of those who tried to sign up for vaccine appointments in the first part of the year went online to do so: Despite early problems with vaccine rollout and online registration systems , in the April survey tech problems did not appear to be major struggles for most adults who had tried to sign up online for COVID-19 vaccines. The survey explored Americans’ experiences getting these vaccine appointments and reveals that in April 57% of adults had tried to sign themselves up and 25% had tried to sign someone else up. Fully 78% of those who tried to sign themselves up and 87% of those who tried to sign others up were online registrants.

When it comes to difficulties with the online vaccine signup process, 29% of those who had tried to sign up online – 13% of all Americans – say it was very or somewhat difficult to sign themselves up for vaccines at that time. Among five reasons for this that the survey asked about, the most common major reason was lack of available appointments, rather than tech-related problems. Adults 65 and older who tried to sign themselves up for the vaccine online were the most likely age group to experience at least some difficulty when they tried to get a vaccine appointment.

Tech struggles and usefulness alike vary by race and ethnicity. Americans’ experiences also have varied across racial and ethnic groups. For example, Black Americans are more likely than White or Hispanic adults to meet the criteria for having “lower tech readiness.” 6 Among broadband users, Black and Hispanic adults were also more likely than White adults to be worried about paying their bills for their high-speed internet access at home as of April, though the share of Hispanic Americans who say this declined sharply since April 2020. And a majority of Black and Hispanic broadband users say they at least sometimes have experienced problems with their internet connection.

Still, Black adults and Hispanic adults are more likely than White adults to say various technologies – text messages, voice calls, video calls, social media sites and email – have helped them a lot to stay connected with family and friends amid the pandemic.

Tech has helped some adults under 30 to connect with friends, but tech fatigue also set in for some. Only about one-in-five adults ages 18 to 29 say they feel closer to friends they know well compared with before the pandemic. This share is twice as high as that among adults 50 and older. Adults under 30 are also more likely than any other age group to say social media sites have helped a lot in staying connected with family and friends (30% say so), and about four-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 say this about video calls.

Screen time affected some negatively, however. About six-in-ten adults under 30 (57%) who have ever made video calls in the pandemic say they at least sometimes feel worn out or fatigued from spending time on video calls, and about half (49%) of young adults say they have tried to cut back on time spent on the internet or their smartphone.

Throughout this report, “parents” refers to those who said they were the parent or guardian of any children who were enrolled in elementary, middle or high school and who lived in their household at the time of the survey. ↩
People with a high-speed internet connection at home also are referred to as “home broadband users” or “broadband users” throughout this report. ↩
Family incomes are based on 2019 earnings and adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and for household sizes. Middle income is defined here as two-thirds to double the median annual family income for all panelists on the American Trends Panel. Lower income falls below that range; upper income falls above it. ↩
A separate Center study also fielded in April 2021 asked Americans what the government is responsible for on a number of topics, but did not mention the coronavirus outbreak. Some 43% of Americans said in that survey that the federal government has a responsibility to provide high-speed internet for all Americans. This was a significant increase from 2019, the last time the Center had asked that more general question, when 28% said the same. ↩
Quotations in this report may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. ↩
There were not enough Asian American respondents in the sample to be broken out into a separate analysis. As always, their responses are incorporated into the general population figures throughout this report. ↩

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Internet Improves Lives| Benefits of the internet | has the internet made society better

14 Ways the Internet Improves Our Lives

March 1, 2022
Advocacy , General

The internet is a near ubiquitous aspect of modern life — making it easy to take for granted all the skills, tools, opportunities, and benefits that it provides. In celebration of CTN’s 14 years of digital inclusion work, we’ve compiled 14 ways that internet access and digital skills can improve someone’s quality of life and h ow the internet helps us in our daily life.

14 Benefits of the Internet and How the Internet Has Made Society Better:

Providing better access to health information and options..

Telemedicine can offer convenient, flexible, and more affordable care options to millions of Americans — especially those who lack accessible and quality healthcare in their region or need to stay at home due to health concerns or disabilities. While the benefits of this online tool are clear, they often go underutilized by the people who need it most due to lack of internet access.

Making it easier to communicate with friends and family.

one of the good things about the internet is that the Internet has made it easier to communicate with friends and family

From video call platforms to social media outlets, friends and family can connect more easily than ever before. For people who are not physically located near their community or have family members in other countries, the internet provides a bridge of connection.

Offering a wealth of online activities and experiences to enjoy remotely.

For older adults or people who might have difficulty leaving the house, the digital world is a gateway to exploration and enjoyment. One of CTN’s learners, Brenda Joyce , uses her tablet and digital skills to join virtual events, like collaging classes and the Frick Museum’s Cocktails with a Curator.

Promoting workforce development skills.

A report by Burning Glass Technologies found that more than 8 in 10 middle-skill jobs require digital skills. With access to the internet and the knowledge to use it, people can work towards higher-paying jobs, develop new skills, and better participate in a digital workforce.

Increasing access to social services and benefits.

There are a lot of helpful resources available that people might not know about or access if they’re not online. Benefits and social services — like the Affordable Connectivity Program — typically have portals, streamlined applications, and qualification info online.

Decreasing isolation and loneliness.

According to our partner Metta Fund , 7% of older adults spend one hour or less socializing with friends or family in one week. This is especially troubling when loneliness is linked to serious mental and physical health conditions.

Empowering people with a sense of agency.

For Luis , one of CTN’s Home Connect learners, the internet prompted a shift in his daily life. He uses his device to listen to music, audiobooks, and religious services. He was able to update his resume and apply for jobs. He even assisted others in getting registered online for vaccine appointments! With the tools of technology, older adults like Luis can independently pursue opportunities and interests online.

Improving education and learning opportunities.

why the internet is good, the Internet has improved education and learning opportunities

The pandemic revealed just how essential internet access is for k-12 students, and its importance will not fade in the coming years. In a 2019 Gallup survey, an overwhelming majority of teachers (85%), principals (96%), and administrators (96%) favored increased use of digital learning tools.

Participating in democracy and civic duties.

According to the Center for American Progress , those who register to vote online are more likely to participate in elections. Not only does the internet make it easier and more accessible to register to vote, but it also helps provide thorough information on candidates and upcoming elections.

Searching and applying for jobs.

The internet is now essential for finding new job opportunities, writing resumes, and submitting applications. Before getting connected to our Sunnyvale program, Laurie Rehaney was struggling to get back on her feet. When she received a Chromebook and training, she was able to find a full-time position working in home care!

Maintaining curiosity, finding new interests, and pursuing hobbies.

The highly connected nature of the web lends itself to discovery. One of our Texas-based learners, Patricia Blaine , uses her tablet to take virtual piano lessons. She was excited to discover how easy it is to record and upload videos to YouTube and is hoping to share her music with others.

Improving the economy for everyone.

A Deloitte study found that a 10% increase in broadband access in 2014 would have resulted in more than 875,000 additional U.S. jobs and $186 billion more in economic output in 2019. Not only is access to the internet helpful for individuals’ economic well-being, but it is also essential for growing our digital economy.

Strengthening communities and social ties.

The internet helps people organize, collaborate, and share information with large numbers of people. For our partner Calle 24 — the leading nonprofit of San Francisco’s Latino Cultural District — lacking the internet puts older businesses at a disadvantage when competing with new, trendy spots. With social media and emails, the Latino Cultural District can distribute information about upcoming events to a wider audience while better engaging with the established community.

Creating a better world.

one of the positive effects of the internet is that it has made the world a better place

While the benefits of the internet and technology are clear, accessing them is still a challenge for millions of Americans. This means we must work to build an equitable and inclusive internet that improves the lives of all people — regardless of their age, income level, or primary language. Want to help us expand digital equity and inclusion? Check out our volunteer and partner opportunities to get involved!

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Information: the Seed of Responsible Consumption (RC)

Teleworking, video conferences and plato’s cave, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, the eternal sound: from the phonograph to holophony, featured author, latest book, the internet and education, introduction.

In many ways, it is difficult to discuss any aspect of contemporary society without considering the Internet. Many people’s lives are saturated so thoroughly with digital technology that the once obvious distinction between either being online or offline now fails to do justice to a situation where the Internet is implicitly always on . Indeed, it is often observed that younger generations are unable to talk about the Internet as a discrete entity. Instead, online practices have been part of young people’s lives since birth and, much like oxygen, water, or electricity, are assumed to be a basic condition of modern life. As Donald Tapscott (2009, 20) put it, “to them, technology is like the air.” Thus, in many ways, talking about the Internet and education simply means talking about contemporary education . The Internet is already an integral element of education in (over)developed nations, and we can be certain that its worldwide educational significance will continue to increase throughout this decade.

That said, the educational impact of the Internet is not straightforward. At a rudimentary level, it is important to remember that well over half the world’s population has no direct experience of using the Internet at all. While this is likely to change with the global expansion of mobile telephony, the issue of unequal access to the most enabling and empowering forms of Internet use remains a major concern. Moreover—as the continued dominance of traditional forms of classroom instruction and paper-and-pencil examinations suggest—the educational changes being experienced in the Internet age are complex and often compromised. In addressing the topic of “the Internet and education” we therefore need to proceed with caution. As such, this chapter will consider the following questions:

What are the potential implications of the Internet for education and learning?
What dominant forms of Internet-based education have emerged over the past 20 years?
How does the educational potential of the Internet relate to the realities of its use?
Most importantly, how should we understand the potential gains and losses of what is being advanced?

The Internet as an Educational Tool

For many commentators, the Internet has always been an inherently educational tool. Indeed, many people would argue that the main characteristics of the Internet align closely with the core concerns of education. For instance, both the Internet and education are concerned with information exchange, communication, and the creation of knowledge.

The participatory, communal nature of many social Internet applications and activities is aligned closely with the fundamental qualities of how humans learn, not least the practices of creating, sharing, collaborating, and critiquing.

Thus, in light of the Internet’s capacity to allow these activities to take place on a vast and almost instantaneous scale, the educational implications of the Internet are understandably often described in grand terms. Take, for example, this recent pronouncement from Jeb Bush:

The Internet isn’t just a powerful tool for communication. It’s arguably the most potent force for learning and innovation since the printing press. And it’s at the center of what is possibly America’s mightiest struggle and greatest opportunity: How to reimagine education for a transformative era.

(Bush and Dawson 2013)

Beyond such hyperbole, the implications of the Internet for education and learning can be understood in at least four distinct ways. First, is the potential of the Internet to offer individual learners increased freedom from the physical limitations of the real world . This is often expressed in terms of reducing constraints of place, space, time, and geography, with individuals able to access high-quality learning opportunities and educational provision regardless of local circumstances. The Internet is therefore portrayed as allowing education to take place on an any time, any place, any pace basis. Many commentators extend these freedoms into a transcendence of social and material disadvantage, with the Internet perceived as an inherently democratizing medium. The ability to support freer and fairer educational interactions and experiences is seen to reflect the Internet’s underpinning qualities as “a radically democratic zone of infinite connectivity” (Murphy 2012, 122).

Secondly, the Internet is seen to support a new culture of learning —i.e., learning that is based around bottom-up principles of collective exploration, play, and innovation rather than top-down individualized instruction (Thomas and Seely-Brown 2011). The Internet allows learning to take place on a many-to-many rather than one-to-many basis, thereby supporting socio-constructivist modes of learning and cognitive development that are profoundly social and cultural in nature. Many educators would consider learners to benefit from the socially rich environments that the Internet can support (see Luckin 2010). For example, it is often argued that the Internet offers individuals enhanced access to sources of knowledge and expertise that exist outside of their immediate environment. In this sense, there is now considerable interest in the ability of the Internet to support powerful forms of situated learning and digitally dispersed communities of practice . The Internet is therefore seen as a powerful tool in supporting learning through authentic activities and interactions between people and extended social environments.

Thirdly, the capacity of the Internet to support a mass connectivity between people and information is felt to have radically altered the relationship between individuals and knowledge. It is sometimes argued that the Internet supports forms of knowledge creation and knowledge consumption that differ greatly from the epistemological presumptions of formal schooling and mass instruction. The networked relationships that Internet users have with online information have prompted wholesale reassessments of the nature of learning. Some educationalists are now beginning to advance ideas of fluid intelligence and connectivism —reflecting the belief that learning via the Internet is contingent on the ability to access and use distributed information on a just-in-time basis. From this perspective, learning is understood as the ability to connect to specialized information nodes and sources as and when required. Thus being knowledgeable relates to the ability to nurture and maintain these connections (see Chatti, Jarke, and Quix 2010). As George Siemens (2004) puts it, learning can therefore be conceived in terms of the “capacity to know more” via the Internet rather than relating to the individual accumulation of prior knowledge in terms of “what is currently known.”

Fourthly, the Internet is seen to have dramatically personalized the ways in which people learn—thereby making education a far more individually determined process than was previously the case. The Internet is associated with an enhanced social autonomy and control, offering individuals increased choice over the nature and form of what they learn, as well as where, when, and how they learn it. Education is therefore a wholly controllable aspect of one’s personal life, with the Internet facilitating a digital juggling of educational engagement alongside daily activities and other commitments (Subrahmanyam and Šmahel 2011). Indeed, Internet users are often celebrated as benefiting from an enhanced capacity to self-organize and curate educational engagement for themselves, rather than relying on the norms and expectations of an education system .

The Educational Implications of the Internet

All these various shifts and realignments clearly constitute a fundamental challenge to the traditional forms of educational provision and practice that were established throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially institutionalized modes of formal schooling and university education. For many commentators, therefore, the Internet contradicts the monopoly of state education systems and the vested interests of the professions that work within them. In all of the ways just outlined, the Internet would certainly seem to test established educational boundaries between ex perts and novices , the production and consumption of knowledge, as well as the timing and location of learning. In terms of how education is provided, the Internet is associated with a range of radically different learning practices and altered social relations.

The Internet has certainly prompted ongoing debate and concern within the educational community. On one hand, many educationalists are busying themselves with rethinking and reimagining the notion of the school and the university in ways that respond to the demands of the Internet age. There have been various proposals over the past decade for the development of educational institutions that are better aligned with the characteristics of Internet-adept learners and online knowledge. As Collins and Halverson (2009, 129) put it, the task of reinventing schools and universities for the Internet age involves not only “rethinking what is important to learn” but also “rethinking learning.” This has seen modes of schooling being developed that are built around the communal creation (rather than individual consumption) of knowledge, in an attempt to imbue learning with a sense of play, expression, reflection, and exploration. The past ten years has seen a rash of ideas from enthusiastic educators proposing the development of new pedagogies and curricula built around social interaction, exploration, gaming , and making . All of these proposals for school 2.0 reflect what Whitby (2013, 9–11) describes as new models of education provision based around “openness to learning and masterful tech-savvy.”

However, in contrast to these re-schooling proposals has been a countermovement to align the Internet with more radical forms of educational deinstitutionalization. These de-schooling arguments have proven popular with groups outside of the traditional education establishment , framing the Internet as capable of usurping the need for educational institutions altogether. Key concepts here include self-determination, self-organization, self-regulation, and (in a neat twist on the notion of do-it-yourself ) the idea of do-it-ourselves . All these ideas align the Internet with a general rejection of institutionalized education—especially what has long been critiqued as the obsolete banking model of accumulating knowledge content . Instead, Internet-based education is conceived along lines of open discussion, open debate, radical questioning, continuous experimentation, and the sharing of knowledge.

As with other aspects of digital activity, education is therefore imagined as something that is now open to reprogramming, modification, and hacking to better suit one’s individual needs.

As Dale Stephens (2013, 9) reasons:

The systems and institutions that we see around us—of schools, college, and work—are being systematically dismantled…. If you want to learn the skills required to navigate the world—the hustle, networking, and creativity—you’re going to have to hack your own education.

These are all highly contestable but highly seductive propositions. Indeed, whether one agrees with them or not, these arguments all highlight the fundamental challenge of the Internet to what was experienced throughout the past one hundred years or so as the dominant mode of education. It is therefore understandable that the Internet is now being discussed in terms of inevitable educational change, transformation, and the general disruption of twentieth-century models of education provision and practice. As the noted technology commentator Jeff Jarvis (2009, 210) concluded in an acclaimed overview of the Internet’s societal significance, “education is one of the institutions most deserving of disruption—and with the greatest opportunities to come of it.” Bold statements such as these are now being made with sufficient frequency and conviction that talk of an impending digital disruption of education is now rarely contested. Many people, therefore, see the prospect of the Internet completely reinventing education not as a matter of if , but as a matter of when .

Prominent Forms of Internet-Based Education

In the face of such forceful predictions of what will happen, it is perhaps sensible to take a step back and consider the realities of what has already happened with the Internet and education. As was suggested at the beginning of this chapter, amidst these grand claims of transformation and disruption, it is important to ask how the educational potential of the Internet is actually being realized in practice. In this sense, we should acknowledge that the Internet has been long used for educational purposes, and a number of prominent models of Internet-based education have emerged over the past 20 years. Perhaps the most established of these are various forms of what has come to be known as e-learning —ranging from online courses through to virtual classrooms and even virtual schools. Many early forms of e-learning involved the predominantly one-way delivery of learning content, thereby replicating traditional correspondence forms of distance education. These programs (which continue to the present day) tend to rely on online content management systems, albeit supported by some form of interactivity in the form of e-mail, bulletin boards, and other communications systems. Alongside these forms of content delivery is the continued development of so-called virtual classrooms—usually spatial representations of classrooms or lecture theaters that can be inhabited by learners and teachers. Often these virtual spaces are designed to support synchronous forms of live instruction and feedback, with learners able to listen to lectures and view videos and visual presentations while also interacting with other learners via text and voice. Other asynchronous forms of virtual classroom exist in the form of digital spaces where resources can be accessed and shared—such as audio recordings and text transcripts of lectures, supplementary readings, and discussion forums. These forms of e-learning have continued to be developed since the 1990s, with entire cyber schools and online universities now well-established features of educational systems around the world.

While these examples of e-learning tend to replicate the basic structure and procedures of bricks-and-mortar schools and universities, a variety of other models of Internet-supported education have emerged over the past 20 years. One of the most familiar forms of Internet-based education is the collective open creation of information and knowledge, as exemplified by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Despite ongoing debates over its accuracy and coverage, the educational significance of Wikipedia is considerable. As well as being a vast information resource, the ability of users to contribute and refine content is seen to make wiki tools such as Wikipedia a significant educational tool. The belief now persists amongst many educators that mass user-driven applications such as Wikipedia allow individuals to engage in learning activities that are more personally meaningful and more publically significant than was ever possible before. As John Willinsky (2009, xiii) reasons:

Today a student who makes the slightest correction to a Wikipedia article is contributing more to the state of public knowledge, in a matter of minutes, than I was able to do over the course of my entire grade school education, such as it was.

These characteristics of wiki tools correspond with the wider Open Educational Resource movement which is concerned with making professionally developed educational materials available online for no cost. In this manner, it is reckoned that content from almost 80 percent of courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are available on this free-to-use basis. Similar commitments can be found in institutions ranging from world-class universities such as Yale and Oxford to local community colleges. In all these cases, course materials such as seminar notes, podcasts, and videos of lectures are shared online with a worldwide population of learners, most of whom could otherwise not attend. Crucially (as with Wikipedia), the emphasis of Open Educational Resources is not merely permitting individuals to use provided materials, but encouraging the alteration and amendment of these resources as required. For example, the UK Open University’s extensive OpenLearn project provides free online access to all of the institution’s curriculum materials with an invitation for individual users to adapt these resources as they wish.

Other forms of online content sharing involve the open distribution of educational content that has been created by individuals as well as institutions. For example, the YouTube EDU service offers access to millions of educational videos produced by individual educators and learners. Similarly, Apple Computers’ collection of educational media—the so-called iTunes U—is designed to allow learners to circumvent traditional educational lectures and classes in favor of on-demand free mobile learning (Çelik, Toptaş, and Karaca 2012). Describing itself as “possibly the world’s greatest collection of free educational media available to students, teachers, and lifelong learners,” iTunes U offers free access to hundreds of thousands of educational audio and video podcast files. Most recently, there has been considerable praise for the Khan Academy’s online provision of thousands of bespoke educational videos alongside interactive quizzes and assessments covering a range of subject areas and topics. The aim of Khan Academy is to support individuals to learn at their own pace and to revisit learning content on a repeated basis. This so-called flipped classroom model is intended to allow individuals to engage with instructional elements of learning before entering a formal classroom. Face-to-face classroom time can be then be devoted to the practical application of the knowledge through problem solving, discovery work, project-based learning, and experiments (Khan 2012).

Another notable open example of Internet-based education has been the development of MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) over the past five years or so. Now, most notably through successful large-scale ventures such as Coursera and Ed-X, MOOCs involve the online delivery of courses on a free-at-the-point-of-contact basis to mass audiences. At its heart, the MOOC model is based on the idea of individuals being encouraged to learn through their own choice of online tools—what has been termed personal learning networks —the collective results of which can be aggregated by the course coordinators and shared with other learners. This focus on individually directed discovery learning has proved especially appropriate to college-level education. Now it is possible for individuals of all ages to participate in mass online courses run by professors from the likes of Stanford, MIT, and Harvard universities in subjects ranging from a Yale elective in Roman architecture to a Harvard course in the fundamentals of neuroscience.

Another radical application of the Internet to support self-directed, non-institutional learning are initiatives such as the hole-in-the-wall and School in the Cloud initiatives. These programs are built around an ethos of minimally invasive education where children and young people can access digital technology at any time, and teach themselves how to use computers and the Internet on an individually paced basis. The guiding ethos for the original hole-in-the-wall program was to locate Internet access in what Arora (2010, 691) characterizes as “out-of-the-way, out-of-the-mind locations” rather than in formal settings such as schools or universities. Indeed, the program’s credo of minimally invasive education is an avowedly non-institutionalized one, with children expected to engage with the Internet as an educative tool “free of charge and free of any supervision” (Mitra 2010). This approach is seen to be especially applicable to locations such as slum communities in India and Cambodia where Internet access is otherwise lacking. The recent elaboration of the initiative into the School in the Cloud marks an attempt to use online communication tools to allow older community members in high-income countries to act as mentors and friendly but knowledgeable mediators to young autonomous learners in lower-income communities. The provision of such access and support is therefore seen to underpin what the project team term “self-organized learning environments” and “self-activated learning”—thus providing an alternative “for those denied formal schooling” in low-income countries (Arora 2010, 700).

These programs, projects, and initiatives are indicative of the variety of ways in which education and the Internet have coalesced over the past 20 years. Yet perhaps the most significant forms of Internet-based education are the completely informal instances of learning that occur in the course of everyday Internet use. In this sense the Internet’s implicit support of various forms of informal learning could be seen as its most substantial educational impact (see Ünlüsoy et al. 2014). As the cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito has described, there are various different genres of everyday Internet-based practice that can be said to involve elements of learning (see Ito et al. 2009). At a basic level is the popular practice of using the Internet to simply hang out with others. Often these forms of hanging out can spill over into more focused instances of what Ito terms messing around —i.e., activities that are interest-driven and more centered on peer sociability, often involving fortuitous searching, experimentation, and playing with resources. This messing around can then sometimes lead to the more intense commitment of what Ito has described as geeking out . These are bouts of concentrated and intense participation within defined communities of like-minded and similarly interested individuals driven by common and often specialized interests. In supporting all these forms of learning , everyday use of the Internet can be seen as an inherently educational activity.

The Reality of the Internet and Education

These examples—and many more like them—are now seen as proof of the Internet’s growing contribution to what it means to learn and be educated in the twenty-first century. Undoubtedly, developments such as MOOCs, flipped classrooms, and self-organized learning could well turn out to be educational game changers (Oblinger 2012). Yet the history of educational technology over the past one hundred years or so warns us that change is rarely as instantaneous or as totalizing as many people would like to believe. Indeed, the history of modern educational technologies (starting with Thomas Edison’s championing of educational filmstrips in the 1910s) has usually been characterized by sets of complex mutually shaping relationships between education and technology (see Cuban 1986). In other words, new technologies rarely—if ever—have a direct one-way impact or predictable effect on education. Rather, established cultures and traditions of education also have a profound reciprocal influence on technologies. As the historian Larry Cuban (1993, 185) observed succinctly of the remarkable resilience of schools to the waves of successive technological developments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, “computer meets classroom—classroom wins.” In asking how the Internet is shaping education in the 2010s, we therefore need to also ask the corresponding question of how education is shaping the Internet.

From this perspective, it is not surprising to see the most successful forms of Internet-based education and e-learning being those that reflect and even replicate pre-Internet forms of education such as classrooms, lectures, and books. It is also not surprising to see the long-established grammar of formal education and educational institutions having a strong bearing on emerging forms of Internet-based education (Tyack and Cuban 1995). Take, for instance, the persistence of familiar practices such as dividing knowledge into distinct subject areas, using graded individual assessments, or relying on expert teachers. While understandable, these continuities certainly belie claims of radical transformation and disruption of the educational status quo. Thus in contrast to the revolutionary zeal of some commentators, it could be observed that the Internet is having most impact on education where it is not causing radically new patterns of participation or practice. For instance, rather than extending educational opportunities to those who previously were excluded, the recent rise of the MOOC in countries such as the U.S. and UK appears primarily to be supporting well-resourced, highly motivated, and already well-educated individuals to engage in more education (thereby replicating a trend referred to by some social commentators as the Matthew Effect ). This is not to say that MOOCs are an insignificant form of education—however, it does suggest that their main impact is that of increasing rather than widening educational participation. Indeed, this view does imply that some of the more radical claims of social transformation and change that surround MOOCs (and other forms of Internet-based education) require careful consideration.

This leaves any attempts to predict the likely influence of the Internet on future forms of education on uncertain ground. Of course, it is unwise to adapt an overtly cynical view that there is nothing new about Internet-based education at all—i.e., that the educational effects of the Internet are simply a case of old wine in new bottles . Yet it is equally unwise to presume that any of the examples given so far in the chapter necessarily herald a fundamental shift in education. The Internet is certainly associated with educational changes—yet these changes are complex, contradictory, convoluted and decidedly messy .

In this respect, perhaps the most significant issues that need to be considered about the Internet and education are sociological, rather than technical, in nature.

In this sense, the Internet prompts a range of ideological questions (rather than purely technical answers) about the nature of education in the near future. Thus, as this chapter draws to a close we should move away from the optimistic speculation that pervades most educational discussions of the Internet. Instead, there are a number of important but less often acknowledged social, cultural, and political implications that also merit attention:

1.The Internet and the increased individualization of education

First, then, is the way in which Internet-based education promotes an implicit individualization of practice and action. The Internet is celebrated by many educationalists as increasing the responsibility of individuals in terms of making choices with regards to education, as well as dealing with the consequences of their choice. All the forms of Internet education outlined in this chapter demand increased levels of self-dependence on the part of the individual, with educational success dependent primarily on the individual’s ability to self-direct their ongoing engagement with learning through various preferred means. Of course, this is usually assumed to work in favor of the individual and to the detriment of formal institutions. Yet the idea of the self-responsibilized, self-determining learner is based upon an unrealistic assumption that all individuals have a capacity to act in an agentic, empowered fashion throughout the course of their day-to-day lives. In Bauman’s (2001) terms, the successful online learner is someone able to act as an empowered individual de facto rather than an individual de jure (i.e., someone who simply has individualism done to them). Of course, only a privileged minority of people are able to act in a largely empowered fashion. As such this individualization of action leads to education becoming an area of increased risk as well as opportunity.

These issues raise a number of important questions. For instance, just how equal are individuals in being able to make the educational choices that the Internet actually offers? How are the apparent educational freedoms of the Internet resulting in enhanced unfreedoms (such as the intensification and extension of educational work into domestic settings)? To what extent are personalized forms of Internet education simply facilitating the mass customization of homogenous educational services and content? What is the nature of the collective forms of Internet-based education? How do communities of learners established through the Internet differ in terms of social diversity, obligation, or solidarity? Is the Internet undermining or even eroding notions of education as a public good?

2. The Internet and the growth of data-driven education

Another significant issue related to the increased educational significance of the Internet is the ways in which online data and information are now defining, as well as describing, social life. The Internet has certainly extended the significance of databases, data mining, analytics, and algorithms, with organizations and institutions functioning increasingly through the ongoing collection, aggregation, and (re)analysis of data. Crucially, the Internet allows this data work to take place on a mass, aggregated scale. We are now seen to be living in an era of Big Data where computerized systems are making available “massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions” (Boyd and Crawford 2012, 662).

The collection and analysis of online data is now a key aspect of how actions are structured and decisions are made in many areas of education. Now, for example, masses of online data are being generated, collected, and collated as a result of the Internet-based activities that take place within educational institutions—ranging from in-house monitoring of system conditions to the public collection of data at local, state, and federal levels. These data are used for a variety of purposes—including internal course administration, target setting, performance management, and student tracking. Similar processes and practices exist in terms of use of data across educational systems—from student databases to performance league tables . There are, of course, many potential advantages to the heightened significance of online data. There has been much recent enthusiasm for the potential of learning analytics —i.e., “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs” (Siemens et al. 2011, 4). Similarly, there is growing discussion of educational data mining and academic analytics . All of these uses of digital data are seen to lead to more efficient and transparent educational processes, as well as supporting individuals to self-monitor and self-diagnose their learning (Eynon 2013).

Yet, there is a clear need for caution amidst these potential advantages—not least how the increased prevalence of online data in education is implicated in the shaping of what people can and cannot do. For example, how are individuals and their learning being represented by data collected online? How does the Internet support the connection, aggregation, and use of these data in ways not before possible? To what extent are individuals’ educational engagements now being determined by data profiles ? How are these online data being used in forms of predictive surveillance where educators and educational institutions use data relating to past performance and behavior to inform expectations of future behaviors? What aspects of educational engagement are not represented in the online data being collected and analyzed?

3. The Internet and the increased commercialization and privatization of education

Thirdly, is the need to recognize the role of commercial and private actors in the growth of Internet-based education. Indeed, the role of the private sector is integral to many of the forms of Internet-based education described in this chapter. For example, it is estimated that the global education/technology market is worth upwards of $7 trillion, with burgeoning levels of private capital investment in online education. A range of multinational commercial interests such as Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw-Hill are now involved heavily in the business of e-learning and online provision of teaching and training—competing with countless smaller commercial concerns and a range of nonprofit organizations. Clearly Internet-based education marks a distinct move away from a planned economy model where education provision is largely the preserve of state-run, public-sector institutions (see Picciano and Spring 2013).

Of course, the increased involvement of commercial interests in online education could be seen to have many potential benefits. The private sector is able to focus considerable technological resources and expertise on educational issues. It is often assumed that commercially provided education is more responsive to the demands of its customers —be it the immediate preferences of learners or the longer-term workforce requirements of business and industry. Moreover, as Chubb and Moe (2012) reason, improvement can arise from market competition between private and public education providers: “in time, [for-profit institutions] may do amazing things with computerized instruction—imagine equivalents of Apple or Microsoft, with the right incentives to work in higher education—and they may give elite nonprofits some healthy competition in providing innovative, high-quality content.” Indeed, the appeal of many of the forms of Internet-based education described in this chapter is predicated upon bringing the innovation of the private sector to bear on the inefficiencies of public education. As Sebastian Thrun (the computer scientist credited with the popularization of the MOOC concept) argued recently: “Education is broken. Face it. It is so broken at so many ends, it requires a little bit of Silicon Valley magic” (Wolfson 2013).

Yet the possibilities for commercial innovation and magic notwithstanding, there are a number of reasons to challenge the growing influence of private interests in shaping education agendas in these ways. For example, how committed are IT producers and vendors to the public good of educational technology above and beyond matters of profit and market share? Given that education is an integral element in determining the life chances of the most vulnerable members of society, how appropriate is a Silicon Valley, venture-capitalist mindset of high-risk start-ups with expected high rates of failure? What are the moral and ethical implications of reshaping education along the lines of market forces and commercial values? Why should education correspond automatically with the needs of the digital economy?

4. The Internet and the changing values of education

Finally—and perhaps less tangibly—there is also a sense that the Internet might be altering the psychological, emotional, and spiritual bases of education. For example, many of the forms of online education discussed in this chapter imply an increased expansion of education into unfamiliar areas of society and social life—leading to an always-on state of potential educational engagement. Indeed, the anytime, anyplace nature of online education clearly involves the expansion of education and learning into domestic, work, and community settings where education and learning might previously have not been prominent. There are clear parallels here with what Basil Bernstein (2001) identified as the “total pedagogization of society”—i.e., a modern society that ensures that pedagogy is integrated into all possible spheres of life. This raises questions of what is perhaps lost when one is able to engage with education at all times of the day and in all contexts? Is there something to be said for being able to disconnect from the pressures of education? Is learning best suited to some contexts and circumstances than others?

Many of the forms of online education described in this chapter could also be said to frame learning (often inadvertently) as a competitive endeavor. Thus in contrast to allowing individuals to learn harmoniously alongside others, the Internet could be seen as placing individuals in “personal formative cycles, occupied in unison within individual feedback-action loops. They learn to become industrious self-improvers, accepting and implementing external goals” (Allen 2011, 378). Thus while a sense of achievement at the expense of others may not be immediately apparent, the Internet could be seen as a means of humanizing, disguising, and intensifying the competitive connotations of learning. Continuing this line of thinking, the partial, segmented, task-orientated, fragmented, and discontinuous nature of online education could perhaps even be seen as a form of spiritual alienation —i.e., alienation at the level of meaning, where conditions of good work become detached from the conditions of good character (Sennett 2012).

All these points also relate to the correspondences between the Internet and the altered emotional aspects of educational engagement. In particular, many of the forms of Internet-based education described earlier in this chapter (such as the virtual school or the MOOC) could be said to involve learning being experienced on less immediate, less intimate, and perhaps more instrumental grounds. These points were explored in Jonathan Wolff’s (2013) recent reflections on what might be lost when a lecture takes place online as opposed to in a face-to-face lecture theater. While these diminishments are often difficult to pinpoint, Wolff suggested qualities such as the immediacy, the serendipity, and the real-ness of the live experience of learning alongside other people. Certainly, the remote, virtual sense of learning online is qualitatively different to the embodied sense of face-to-face learning—both in advantageous and disadvantageous ways.

Conclusions

Whether one agrees with any of these latter arguments or not, it is clear that the topic of “the Internet and education” needs to be approached in a circumspect manner. The predominantly optimistic rhetoric of transformation and change that currently surrounds the Internet and education distracts from a number of significant conflicts and tensions that need to be better acknowledged and addressed. This is not to say that we should adopt a wholly antagonistic or wholly pessimistic stance. Indeed, many of the issues just outlined should not be assumed automatically to be cause for concern. There are, after all, many people who will be advantaged by more individualized, elitist, competitive, market-driven, omnipresent, and de-emotionalized forms of educational engagement. The Internet clearly works for the millions of people who are learning online at this very moment.

Yet while it may well be that the Internet is helping some individuals to engage with education in more convenient, engaging, and useful ways, we would do well to acknowledge that this is unlikely to be the case for all. Any Internet-led changes in education are accompanied by a variety of unintended consequences, second-order effects , and unforeseen implications. Perhaps the most important point to consider is the well-worn tendency of digital technology to reinforce existing patterns of educational engagement—helping already engaged individuals to participate further, but doing little to widen participation or reengage those who are previously disengaged. In particular, any discussion of the educational potential of the Internet needs to remain mindful of the limited usefulness of a technical-fix approach to understanding contemporary education. The Internet should not be seen as a ready solution to apparent inefficiencies of twentieth-century education institutions or practices—it will not lead automatically to more engaged or motivated learners, more highly skilled workforces, or rising levels of national intelligence and innovation. Instead, it is likely that many of the problems of contemporary education are primarily social and cultural in nature, and therefore require social and cultural responses.

As such, while there is plenty of scope for the increased use of the Internet within education, any claims for change and improvement should be seen as contentious and debatable matters, rather than inevitable trends that educators have no choice but to adapt to. To reiterate a key theme that has emerged throughout our discussion, underlying all of the issues raised in this chapter are questions of what sort of future education one believes in. As such, the role of the Internet in improving , transforming , or even disrupting education is a deeply complex and ideologically loaded matter that goes well beyond technical issues of how to personalize the delivery of educational content, or support the production and consumption of online content. The future of education may well involve increased use of the Internet—but will not be determined by it.

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How the Internet Has Changed Everyday Life

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Essay on Uses of Internet for Students and Children

500 words essay on uses of internet.

The Internet has become a sensation nowadays. It is something that humans cannot function without anymore. It has occupied a great part of our lives. We use the internet for almost every little and a big task now. It ranges from searching for a job to listening to music.

The Internet has basically made our lives easier and convenient. The world is at our fingertips now, thanks to the internet. When we see how it has changed the scenario of the modern world, we can’t help but notice its importance. It is used in all spheres of life now.

Internet and Communication

The world has become smaller because of the internet. Now we can communicate with our loved ones oceans away. The days of letter writing are gone where we had to wait for weeks to get a reply. Everything is instant now. Even though telephones allowed us to do that, but the cost was too high. The common man could not afford to call people overseas because of the costs.

However, the internet changed that. Communicating with people both near and far is now easy and affordable. We can send them emails and chat with them through instant messaging apps. We may also video call them using the internet which allows us to see them clearly even though we are miles away.

Furthermore, we can now get instant news updates from all over the world. The moment anything takes place anywhere in the world, we get to know about it. In addition, we are informed about the natural calamities within the correct time. Moreover, we can easily contact our job recruiters using the internet. Job application has been made so much easier through the internet.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Internet and Entertainment

Entertainment and the Internet go hand in hand now. Everything is at your fingertips to enjoy. You can book movie tickets easily on the internet. Gone are the days of waiting in long queues to get the ticket for the latest movie. It can all be done through the comfort of your home. Similarly, you can also book match tickets and concert tickets without going through the hassle of standing in long lines.

In addition, we can now do all our shopping online. You won’t have to go out in the harsh weather to shop for stuff. The Internet allows you to browse through a large assortment of products with all the details given. It ranges from something as small as a mug to a laptop, you can have it all. Furthermore, you may also filter the categories to find exactly what you are looking for within seconds.

Nowadays, web series are quite a hit amongst the youth. They do not watch TV anymore; rather they enjoy the web series. Various platforms have created shows which they release on the internet that has a major fan following. You can get your daily dose of entertainment from the internet now. Whether you want to hear the latest music, you don’t have to spend a hefty amount to buy the CD. You can simply listen to it on the internet.

Thus, we see how the internet has changed and made our lives easy in various ways. We can connect with our loved ones easily and get access to unlimited entertainment instantly.

FAQs on Uses of Internet

Q.1 How does the internet help in communicating?

A.1 We can now communicate with our loved ones using the internet. We can video call them and connect with our relatives living overseas.

Q.2 What does internet offer in terms of entertainment?

A.2 Internet offers us various modes of entertainment. We can watch movies and shows online. We can also book tickets and shop for products online.

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A study of more than 2 million people in 168 countries suggests that having access to the internet is linked to higher life satisfaction, but many questions remain unanswered

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Growing access to the internet is linked with better well-being around the world, a large study has concluded. The finding seems to be at odds with concerns that smartphones have led to a tsunami of mental health problems. So, where does the truth lie?

While concerns over excessive use of phones, computers and other devices may seem like a modern phenomenon, in fact they echo similar fears over past…

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Is the Internet bad for you? Huge study reveals surprise effect on well-being

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A global, 16-year study 1 of 2.4 million people has found that Internet use might boost measures of well-being, such as life satisfaction and sense of purpose — challenging the commonly held idea that Internet use has negative effects on people’s welfare.

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Why the Internet Is Boring Now

A conversation with Ian Bogost about how the web became a victim of its own success

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This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Ian Bogost has lived through more than a few hype cycles on the internet. The Atlantic contributing writer has been online, and building websites, since the early days of the World Wide Web. I spoke with him about what happens when new technologies age into the mainstream, how the web has in some ways been a victim of its own success, and the parts of the internet that still delight him.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic :

The spat that made Congress even worse
The “America First” chaos caucus is forcing a moment of truth.
Your childhood home might never stop haunting you.

The Web Is Fine

Lora Kelley: Is it fair to say everything online is deteriorating? Or is that too dramatic?

Ian Bogost: It’s easy to focus on the stuff that seems bad or broken, because it is noticeable and also because the internet is built for complaining about things. And it’s natural that one of the things we like to complain about the most on the internet is the internet itself. But there’s a lot of stuff online that’s really amazing, and we should be careful to keep that in mind.

The things that feel like deterioration are the result of a saturated market. There’s no longer any incentive for tech products to be as good for consumers as they once were. That’s in part a cost issue—a lot of tech was effectively subsidized for years. But also, the delightful or even just straightforwardly functional services created years ago don’t have to be quite so friendly and usable. Because of their success, there’s not as much of a need to satisfy people anymore.

These products are now like a lot of other things in our offline lives—fine. When you go to buy a car or a mattress or whatever, it’s just kind of the way it is. We’ve reached that level of cultural ubiquity with computers.

Lora: Is it inevitable that products will become boring once they become the mainstream? Is there any way around that, or are we stuck in a cycle of novelty to boredom?

Ian: That’s the cycle, and it’s good. Boredom means that something is successful. When things are new, they feel wild and exciting. We don’t know what they mean yet, and there’s a lot of promise—maybe even fear.

But for something to truly become successful at a massive scale—for millions or billions of people to develop a relationship with a product or service—the product has to recede into the background again and become ordinary. And once it reaches that point, you stop thinking about it quite so much. You take it for granted.

Lora: You have written about your experience using, and building websites on, the internet in the ’90s. What parallels do you see between the early web and this current moment of generative AI?

Ian: I remember living through the early days of the web, and we never had any idea that millions and billions of people would be using these data-extraction services. None of that occurred to us at the time. I don’t think there’s a very strong cultural memory of the early days of the web. We have a lot of stories about the excesses of the dot-com era, but the more ordinary stuff didn’t get recorded in the same way.

Everything that we did, we had to convince some old-world business that it was worth doing. It was a process of bringing the offline world online. In the decades since, technologists have started disrupting the legacy businesses and sectors through innovation. And that worked really well from the perspective of building markets and building wealth. But it didn’t necessarily make the world better.

Generative AI feels more like those early days of the web than social media or the Web 2.0 era did. It’s my hope that maybe we’ll go about this in a way that draws from the lessons learned over the past 30 years—which, of course, we probably won’t. Technologists shouldn’t be trying to blow things up; rather, they should make use of what technology allows in order to do things better, more equitably, and more effectively.

Lora: In 2024, do you still find the web to be a site of wonder?

Ian: Being able to talk to family and friends as much as I want, for free, is still historically unusual and delightful. The fundamental feature of the internet still exists: I can look out and get a little buzz of delight just from seeing something new.

The web became a strip mall.
Social media is not what killed the web.

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A New York Times report found that an upside-down flag , a “Stop the Steal” symbol, flew at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house in January 2021, when the Supreme Court was considering whether to hear a 2020 election case.
The man who bludgeoned Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022 was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. He is awaiting a state trial later this month.
Daniel Perry, a former Army sergeant who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020, was released from prison yesterday after Texas Governor Greg Abbott granted him a pardon.
The Books Briefing : Alice Munro’s death was an occasion to praise her life as a writer as much as her actual work, Gal Beckerman writes.

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Evening Read

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The One Place in Airports People Actually Want to Be

By Amanda Mull

On a bright, chilly Thursday in February, most of the people inside the Chase Sapphire Lounge at LaGuardia Airport appeared to be doing something largely absent from modern air travel: They were having fun. I arrived at Terminal B before 9:30 a.m., but the lounge had already been in full swing for hours. Most of the velvet-upholstered stools surrounding the circular, marble-topped bar were filled. Travelers who looked like they were heading to couples’ getaways or girls’ weekends clustered in twos or threes, waiting for their mimosas or Bloody Marys … While I ate my breakfast—a brussels-sprout-and-potato hash with bacon and a poached egg ordered using a QR code, which also offered me the opportunity to book a gratis half-hour mini-facial in the lounge’s wellness area—I listened to the 30-somethings at the next table marveling about how nice this whole thing was. That’s not a sentiment you’d necessarily expect to hear about the contrived luxury of an airport lounge.

Read the full article.

Researching the Internet of Things (IoT) Essay

Introduction.

Contemporary advancements in the sphere of technology and innovation rapidly integrate the Internet of Things (IoT) into the daily lives of individuals and businesses. The growing requirements for convenience and practicality of processing big data instantaneously require firms’ adjustment of their database solutions. In this regard, alternating from conventional structured databases to dynamic ones would allow for broadening the scope of the information systems’ functionality and provide more efficiency for processing and a higher level of competitiveness for organizations.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is a new reality in the modern world of business due to the reliance of technological and innovative industries on IoT. According to Laghari et al. (2021), IoT’s impact on the effectiveness of business solutions is pivotal in the modern world due to the advancement of automation and remote relations of human-human and human-device interactions. In particular, IoT is a newly emerged ecosystem that emphasizes the importance of processing and exchanging big data fast to ensure instant connectivity between the parties involved in the data exchange process (Laghari et al., 2021). To enable the functionality of IoT, instant access to dynamically changing data should be provided. In particular, “the connectivity, networking, and communication protocols used with web-enabled devices are highly dependent on the specific IoT (internet of things) applications implemented” (Laghari et al., 2021, p. 94150). Such applications allow for broadening the opportunities for business growth in a long-term perspective.

Importance of Switching to Dynamic Databases

The importance of switching to dynamic databases for eHermes is validated by the organization’s need to improve its data exchange solutions to complete its business tasks. Overall, IoT requires improved connectivity between databases, users, and devices (Laghari et al., 2021). Furthermore, the shift is justified by the importance of web-enabled devices’ instant functioning within the scope of IoT ecosystems. Moreover, the growing relevance of big data in contemporary technological and innovative industries necessitates updating databases toward dynamic characteristics, which requires qualitative changes in data particularities (Subahi, 2019. In addition, a specific vision of eHermes in relation to the broadened abilities of the security-related functions justifies the relevance and benefit of dynamic databases.

Features of MongoDB

One of the dynamic database solutions that might help eHermes improve its functionality and meet its requirements related to instantaneous security video footage processing is MongoDB. It is “an open-source document database that provides high performance, high availability, and automatic scaling” (Chauhan, 2019, p. 90). This database is characterized by a variety of benefits that might increase the productivity of eHermes’ systems. Indeed, MongoDB has deep query ability, which is essential for video data extraction (Chauhan, 2019). In addition, it provides opportunities for the safe storing of data in internal memory, as well as simple processing of big data, which is essential in the context of IoT ecosystems. Ultimately, it is characterized by high performance and the possibility of user and content management.

Switching to Dynamic Databases for Competitive Advantage

The decision-makers at eHermes should consider switching to dynamic databases in general and MongoDB in particular due to such a decision’s significant contribution to the organization’s competitive advantage. In particular, eHermes will be able to increase the efficiency of data processing, access big data that changes frequently, and ensure faster technological solutions, which will allow for outperforming competitors (Subahi, 2019). Furthermore, dynamic databases will allow for the prioritization of customer needs and improve the liquidity of business in the IoT context

In summation, the advancement of IoT technology in modern innovation requires changing structured databases to dynamic ones. Businesses’ dependence on dynamic data and big data’s availability requires technological decision-making. It is recommended to shift to MongoDB due to its multiple benefits. It will allow eHermes to make a contribution to business liquidity and improve its competitive advantage.

Chauhan, A. (2019). A review on various aspects of MongoDB databases. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology, 8 (05), 90-92.

Laghari, A. A., Wu, K., Laghari, R. A., Ali, M., & Khan, A. A. (2021). A review and state of art of Internet of Things (IoT). Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering, 2021 , 1-19.

Subahi, A. F. (2019). Edge-based IoT medical record system: Requirements, recommendations and conceptual design. IEEE Access, 7 , 94150-94159.

Using IoT Low-Cost Sensors for Smallholder Farms
The Internet of Things: A Brief Research
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Effect of the Internet on Our Brains
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The Development of the Internet Space
Navigating the Digital Realm: Unveiling the Role of ICANN in Internet Governance
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, May 22). Researching the Internet of Things (IoT). https://ivypanda.com/essays/researching-the-internet-of-things-iot/

"Researching the Internet of Things (IoT)." IvyPanda , 22 May 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/researching-the-internet-of-things-iot/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Researching the Internet of Things (IoT)'. 22 May.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Researching the Internet of Things (IoT)." May 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/researching-the-internet-of-things-iot/.

1. IvyPanda . "Researching the Internet of Things (IoT)." May 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/researching-the-internet-of-things-iot/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Researching the Internet of Things (IoT)." May 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/researching-the-internet-of-things-iot/.

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 23.5.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

Mobile Health Apps, Family Caregivers, and Care Planning: Scoping Review

Authors of this article:

Marjorie M Kelley 1 , MS, RN, PhD ;
Tia Powell 2 , MD ;
Djibril Camara 3 , MPH, MD ;
Neha Shah 4 , MSPH ;
Jenna M Norton 4 , MPH, PhD ;
Chelsea Deitelzweig 5 , BA ;
Nivedha Vaidy 4 ;
Chun-Ju Hsiao 6 , PhD ;
Jing Wang 7 , MPH, RN, PhD ;
Arlene S Bierman 5 , MS, MD

1 The Ohio State University College of Nursing, Columbus, OH, United States

2 Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States

3 Credence Management Solution, USAID Global Health Technical Professionals, Washington, DC, United States

4 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD, United States

5 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, United States

6 Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, United States

7 Florida State University College of Nursing, Tallahassee, FL, United States

Corresponding Author:

Arlene S Bierman, MS, MD

Agency for Health Care Research and Quality

5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD, 20857

United States

Phone: 1 (301) 427 1104

Email: [email protected]

Background: People living with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) face substantial challenges in planning and coordinating increasingly complex care. Family caregivers provide important assistance for people with MCCs but lack sufficient support. Caregiver apps have the potential to help by enhancing care coordination and planning among the health care team, including patients, caregivers, and clinicians.

Objective: We aim to conduct a scoping review to assess the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps that support care planning and coordination, as well as to identify key factors (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators) related to their use and desired caregiver app functionalities.

Methods: Papers intersecting 2 major domains, mobile health (mHealth) apps and caregivers, that were in English and published from 2015 to 2021 were included in the initial search from 6 databases and gray literature and ancestry searches. As per JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) Scoping Review guidelines and PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews), 2 authors independently screened full texts with disagreements resolved by a third author. Working in pairs, the authors extracted data using a pilot-tested JBI extraction table and compared results for consensus.

Results: We identified 34 papers representing 25 individual studies, including 18 (53%) pilot and feasibility studies, 13 (38%) qualitative studies, and 2 experimental or quasi-experimental studies. None of the identified studies assessed an intervention of a caregiver app for care planning and coordination for people with MCCs. We identified important caregiver needs in terms of information, support, and care coordination related to both caregiving and self-care. We compiled desired functionalities and features enabling apps to meet the care planning and care coordination needs of caregivers, in particular, the integration of caregiver roles into the electronic health record.

Conclusions: Caregiver needs identified through this study can inform developers and researchers in the design and implementation of mHealth apps that integrate with the electronic health record to link caregivers, patients, and clinicians to support coordinated care for people with MCCs. In addition, this study highlights the need for more rigorous research on the use of mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination.

Introduction

In 2020, between 17.7 and 40 million Americans were family caregivers of adults aged 65 years or older [ 1 ], defined as unpaid relatives, partners, or friends who assist persons in daily activities due to disease, disability, or other conditions. The need for family caregivers is projected to increase by 2030 with the older adult population and complexity of care increasing [ 2 ]. Many care recipients have multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) defined as the presence of 2 or more chronic physical or mental health conditions [ 3 ]. Over a quarter of the US adult population (27.2%) struggles with MCCs, with the highest prevalence (76.9%) among adults with both Medicare and Medicaid [ 3 ]. People living with MCCs are high users of care, including outpatient, emergency, inpatient, postacute, home, and long-term care, as well as prescription drugs [ 4 ]. People with MCCs account for 64% of all clinician visits, 70% of all in-patient stays, 83% of all prescriptions, 71% of all health care spending, and 93% of Medicare spending [ 5 ].

Complex care routines are common among patients with MCCs and often difficult for people living with MCCs and their caregivers to maintain, leading to avoidable adverse events, poor health outcomes, increased health spending, duplication of services, and polypharmacy [ 6 ]. The many challenges associated with care complexity and care planning add to the physical, psychological, and financial burdens associated with caregiving [ 7 ]. In fact, 14.5% of American caregivers have reported that they experienced mental health decline for at least half the days in a month [ 2 ].

Poor caregiver health and unmet needs have been widely documented and include mental and physical health concerns [ 8 ], unmet need for information on medication and care management to support the care recipient [ 7 ], limited access to supportive services [ 7 ], issues with communication across the care continuum [ 9 ], and burdens associated with work, social isolation [ 7 ], and finances [ 10 ]. Importantly, assistance with care coordination and planning has been consistently noted as an unmet need for caregivers [ 11 ].

Care Planning and Care Coordination

Developing care plans and organizing care involves the marshaling of personnel and other resources needed to carry out essential patient care activities and requires the exchange of information among participants responsible for different aspects of care [ 12 ]. Care planning is a collaborative process focused on discussing patient and clinical goals of care, conducting shared decision-making to identify strategies for clinical and self-management to achieve these goals based on evidence and patient preference, clarifying roles for different members of the care team, and empowering patients and caregivers [ 13 ]. These processes link health professionals, caregivers, and patients in the tasks of designing and implementing care.

Developing a comprehensive care plan both requires and supports care coordination by aggregating and streamlining data on health and social concerns, goals, care management strategies, and health status. Effective care coordination entails the organization of patient care activities to facilitate the appropriate and timely delivery of health care services by multiple clinicians in multiple care settings [ 12 ]. Care coordination involves the patient, clinicians, health care teams including nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, and social workers, and caregivers. Such care coordination has been shown to benefit multiple domains, including decreased symptoms and mortality, and increased quality of life [ 14 ].

Digital Solutions

Digital solutions offer an opportunity to alleviate some of the care planning and coordination burdens currently shouldered by caregivers and patients. Digital health solutions encompass a variety of information or communication technologies applied to health needs. Digital health is mobile health (mHealth) when implemented on mobile devices. Digital health apps—or programs designed to accomplish specific tasks—fall into the category of mHealth when they are designed to operate on a mobile device.

mHealth apps have the inherent capability of increasing the reach of interventions, and transcending geography and time. They are also often more broadly accessible in the United States, as the uptake of mobile devices is greater than desktop computers [ 11 ]. Furthermore, they can be explicitly tailored to individual needs. Recent advances in technology and software now allow apps to be linked to other digital devices and the electronic health record (EHR).

Several systematic reviews outlined challenges associated with existing apps for caregivers, especially insufficient scientific evidence to support the efficacy of these apps [ 15 - 20 ]. However, no review has focused either on care planning and coordination apps overall or on caregivers of people with MCCs. Moreover, no review focused on the importance of care planning and coordination between the caregiver, care recipient, and professional health care providers. We conducted a scoping review to examine the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps designed to support care planning and coordination, identify key factors related to their use (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators), and characterize desired functionality. This review was undertaken to inform the development of a comprehensive, interoperable electronic care plan with clinician-, patient-, and caregiver-facing components to enhance care planning and coordination, address fragmentation of health care, and enhance the collection and sharing of critical patient-centered data across community, clinical, and research settings for people living with MCCs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), with support from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, are working in partnership to develop an interoperable e-care plan.

We conducted a scoping literature review using JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) Scoping Review guidelines [ 21 ] and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) [ 22 ] to guide our methods and reporting. Papers published in English between January 2011 and June 2021 were included. Hence, our initial search activity specific to care planning and coordination revealed a dearth of papers, we broadened our search to include papers intersecting 2 major domains: mHealth apps and caregivers ( Figure 1 ). We hoped to capture available information relevant to care planning and coordination from the perspective of the caregiver. We included mobile health apps like native apps (ie, residing on smartphones) as well as web-based apps designed for smartphone formats. We included all diseases and conditions and care settings (eg, ambulatory, hospital, home, hospice, and long-term care). Study types included pilot and feasibility and experimental and quasi-experimental study designs. Source documents included academic peer-reviewed journals, dissertations and theses, government policy documents, and white papers published by caregiver advocacy organizations (eg, AARP [American Association of Retired Persons] and National Alliance for Caregiving). Studies including paid caregivers or caregivers of patients aged younger than 18 years were excluded. Interventions delivered via social media, phone calls (including interactive voice response), video, telehealth, or text messaging alone were excluded. We also excluded interventions delivered in low- and middle-income countries given significant differences in information technology infrastructure and patterns of use [ 23 ]. As such, comparisons would be difficult. Research interventions involving assistive technologies (ie, motion sensors), non–health related, and health literacy alone were excluded. Source documents such as opinion or editorial papers, conference posters or abstracts, study protocols, blogs, and websites were excluded. Key search terms ( Textbox 1 ) alone or in combination, were used to create our search protocols in 6 databases: PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Embase. We conducted ancestry searches of caregiver app reviews and caregiver literature reviews and searched several domain-specific journal databases including the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , Journal of Medical Internet Research , International Journal of Medical Informatics , Journal of the American Medical Association , and New England Journal of Medicine .

Caregiver; caretaker; care provider; carer; care

mHealth app

mHealth; “mobile health” app; applications; “digital application”; eHealth; and smartphone
Medical Subject Headings terms: telemedicine [encompasses mHealth]; mobile applications

We exported search results into EndNote, a reference management software platform to eliminate duplications, then uploaded them into Covidence, a web-based systematic review platform, to streamline evidence synthesis and author collaboration. Covidence allowed the research team to work collaboratively when screening papers at the title, abstract, and full-text level. In total, 2 authors independently screened titles and abstracts for eligibility with full-text screening conducted in the same manner. Screening disagreements were resolved through discussion or review by a third author. In keeping with scoping review methodological practices, critical appraisal, and risk of bias were not assessed.

Working in pairs, authors independently extracted data after adapting the JBI data extraction template and a previously used and pilot-tested data extraction table [ 24 ]. Then, each author compared results with the other for consensus about the extracted element. Data extraction elements included first author, publication date, health care domain of the care recipient, country, title, participant demographics, study purpose, study design, intervention description, app name and hyperlink if available, primary app users (ie, patient, caregiver, health care provider, and other), key or primary findings, app features and functionality—including desired functionality, how app supported care coordination, and how app supported caregivers ( Multimedia Appendix 1 [ 25 - 45 ]). For qualitative studies, we extracted data elements associated with caregiver needs and desires. We used conventional content analysis methods, previously described by Hsieh and Shannon [ 46 ], to code and group categories as the phenomena of interest was new with little of the theoretical or literature available to guide the analysis. In keeping with conventional content analysis methods [ 47 ], we relied on inductive category development as categories and subcategories emerged from the literature, followed by deductive category and subcategory assignment.

Of the 3019 nonduplicative records screened, 34 papers [ 25 - 45 , 48 - 60 ] representing 25 individual studies were included in this scoping literature review ( Figure 1 ; Multimedia Appendix 1 ). Publication dates ranged from 2015 to 2021, with 29 (76%) papers published between January 2018 and August 2021. In total, 18 (53%) papers were feasibility, usability, or pilot studies [ 25 - 27 , 29 - 37 , 39 - 43 , 45 ] with qualitative or needs assessment papers representing 38% (n=13) [ 48 - 60 ]. Only 3 papers [ 28 , 38 , 44 ] reported using quantitative research methods to assess intervention efficacy ( Textbox 2 ). Research was predominantly conducted in the United States (22 of 34). Further, 5 papers were from Australia, 3 from Spain, and one each from Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Turkey. In total, 14 papers focused on cancer caregiving, 7 on dementia caregiving, 6 on general caregiving, 2 each for stem cell transplant and mental health, and one each on heart failure, liver, mental health, and hospice. See Textbox 2 for details of the health care domain and paper type.

Cancer (n=14)

Experimental and quasi-experimental (n=1)
Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=9)
Qualitative (n=4)

Dementia (n=7)

Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=2)

General caregiving (n=6)

Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=4)
Qualitative (n=1)

Mental health (n=2)

Qualitative (n=2)

Stem cell transplant (n=2)

Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=1)

Heart failure (n=1)

Liver (n=1)

Hospice pain management (n=1)

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies

Of the 3 quasi-experimental or experimental studies [ 28 , 38 , 44 ], Park and colleagues [ 38 ] developed an app for caregivers focused on knowledge of dementia, communication, and coping. Ferré-Grau and colleagues [ 28 ] conducted a randomized controlled trial of an app intervention designed to promote caregiver mental health. Finally, research conducted by Uysal et al [ 44 ], used an app for caregivers of patients with cancer focused on caregiver self-care and education. Overall, these studies, like many mHealth interventions for caregivers, addressed important caregiver needs including quality of life. However, none of these apps linked to information in the EHRs or leveraged data standards to support interoperability of data across the care team, nor did the apps provide enhanced communication among caregivers and the health care team. None of the studies investigated or measured care planning or coordination.

Pilot and Feasibility Studies

In total, 18 pilot and feasibility papers [ 25 - 27 , 29 - 37 , 39 - 43 , 45 ], representing 12 studies, were included in this review. The majority (n=14, 78%) of these studies used small convenience samples. Furthermore, 11 of the papers focused exclusively on caregiver mental health or included a component of caregiver mental health in the interventions [ 25 - 27 , 32 - 34 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 43 ]. In total, 5 reported on apps that included disease education or caregiving education [ 25 , 26 , 31 , 37 , 41 ]. Further, 3 focused on caregiver communications with family and friends [ 41 , 42 , 45 ] but did not assess care coordination or communication with health care providers. One included education on the skills necessary to communicate with health care professionals but did not assess care planning, coordination, or communication as an outcome as it was a feasibility study [ 45 ].

Most of the pilot and feasibility studies focused on the important goal of supporting caregivers’ wellness but did not address care planning or coordination. For example, in one study—with results described in 3 papers [ 27 , 39 , 40 ]—the researchers conducted a 12-week feasibility study using a psycho-educational intervention delivered via video sessions with a goal of caregiver stress reduction. In another study [ 25 , 37 ], investigators used a mindfulness app and assessed cultural sensitivity and barriers to use as feasibility criteria. Kubo and colleagues [ 32 - 34 ] evaluated a commercially available mindfulness app to assess the feasibility of use to improve caregivers’ mental health. Similarly, Sikder and colleagues [ 43 ] pilot-tested an app focused on improving depression symptoms among caregivers.

In total, 7 papers included caregivers only as participants [ 27 , 31 , 36 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 43 ], while 9 papers included caregivers and care recipients as participants [ 25 , 29 , 30 , 32 - 35 , 37 , 41 ]. Only 2 feasibility studies, one conducted by Brown et al [ 26 ] and the other conducted by Wittenberg and colleagues [ 45 ], also included health professionals as participants. Brown and colleagues [ 26 ] examined the feasibility of an app for dementia caregivers, and included caregivers, homecare case managers, and primary health care providers as participants. The platform, CareHeros, was designed with the goal of bidirectional sharing of care recipients’ information between caregivers and health care professionals. The platform did not communicate with EHRs, and bidirectional communication was only reported between case managers and primary care providers, exclusive of caregivers and care recipients. There was limited uptake of the app, with participants logging into CareHeros an average of only 2.18 times over the 11-week period of this study. Wittenberg and colleagues [ 45 ] demonstrated the feasibility of an mHealth app to support caregiver communication skills related to caregiving. The overall objectives of the app development included: (1) to improve caregiver communication skills related to caregiving, (2) to facilitate information sharing among family members, (3) to provide self-care resources for caregivers, and (4) to increase caregiver knowledge. The app was not designed to connect to the EHR, nor was it designed to increase or support communication between caregivers and health care professionals. Caregivers and health care professionals participated in the design and the development of the app as well as usability and acceptability testing. Both groups found the app to be usable and acceptable for helping caregivers with educational needs and communication skills related to caregiving.

While none of the 18 pilot and feasibility studies directly evaluated care planning or coordination as an aim or outcome, 2 [ 30 , 35 ] investigated apps that could assist in care delivery—with caregivers assessing care recipients’ pain [ 35 ] and caregivers assessing care recipients’ hepatic encephalopathy [ 30 ]. Ganapathy and colleagues [ 30 ] used the PatientBuddy app, which sent alerts with critical values regarding hepatic encephalopathy to dyads of patients and caregivers as well as clinicians to support care management, obtaining a positive impact reducing 30-day readmissions in a small cohort. Mayahara et al [ 35 ] conducted a pilot study using e-Pain Reporter, which assisted caregivers in assessing and managing the pain of family members in home hospice. The e-Pain Reporter was designed to provide information on patient pain and pain management to nurses in real time. However, this pilot study did not assess the communication aspect of the app.

In summary, among these pilot and feasibility studies, heterogeneity in study design, interventions, and outcomes preclude meta-analysis, generalization, and direct comparisons. Additionally, most failed to provide support for care planning or coordination and none linked with the EHR or leveraged interoperable data standards. As with most pilot and feasibility studies, these results were preliminary, not powered to identify statistically significant differences in outcomes, and were specific to the app under investigation. Still, a small number of promising studies [ 26 , 30 , 35 , 45 ] attempted to enhance communication or information sharing, a component of care planning and coordination.

Qualitative Studies

In total, 13 (38%) papers [ 48 - 60 ] included in this review were qualitative studies assessing caregiver needs associated with mHealth apps. These caregiver needs were synthesized into 3 broad categories: (1) needs associated with providing care, (2) needs associated with self-care, and (3) desired app features and functionality. In terms of providing care (category 1), caregivers needed information, support, and help with care coordination. For self-care (category 2), caregivers reported a need for information and support. A detailed list of desired mHealth app features and functionality (category 3) is provided in Textbox 3 .

Needs associated with providing care

Adjusting to a new role
Information on disease or condition of care recipient
Information on disease or condition common comorbidities
Symptom, behavior, or safety
When to seek help
Changing nature of caregiving
Financial and legal services (financial assistance, job help, and health care payment)
On-demand education and training
Community support links (transportation or community reintegration)
Content tailored to care recipients’ needs
Simple—easy to understand
Up-to-date scientific evidence and mechanism for updating the information
Multimodal delivery of information: video, audio, text, or animations
Always accessible
Support for care recipients’ physical and emotional needs
Support with rehabilitation and activities of daily living (oral, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, feeding and nutrition, transferring, and ambulation)
Decision-making support
Medication management
Tracking and monitoring of care recipient—mental, physical, emotional, and social (including symptoms, vital signs)
Content tailored to care recipient’s needs
Family or personal relationships (asking for help, safety, and communication)
Integrated app with health care system—care coordination
Ability to complete questionnaires at home, unrushed
Finding care equipment
List of important contacts and contact information for quick reference
Information and connection to support services (specialty care, first responders, advocacy organizations, and respite services)
Relationships with health care providers (personal contact)
Feedback from health care providers—instant
Automated data entry and reminders or prompts
“One-stop-shopping”—all information in 1 place

Needs associated with self-care

Information to help improve caregivers’ health (stress management, peer support, and support groups)
Activities, programs, and therapy to improve mental, physical, and social support of caregivers
Content tailored to caregivers’ needs
Family or personal relationship help (safety or asking others for help or support)
Preventing social isolation
Tracking and monitoring of caregiver—mental, physical, emotional, or social (including symptoms, mental health, vital signs)
Content tailored to caregiver needs
Social media—“people like me” with expert moderator
Peer mentor, support, or coaching

Desired mHealth app features and functionality

Easy to use
Easy to learn
Integrated with phone contacts and other apps (exercise and weight management)
Ability to report care recipient status or symptoms to health care providers and get a response, feedback, or follow-up quickly
Task reminders (appointments, medication management, etc)
Integrate with other platforms or devices (electronic health records, smart watches, or pharmacy)
Share information with family members
Integrate music or other entertainment
Track patient symptoms or issues over time
Track caregiver issues over time
Customizable
App from a trusted source and evidence-based content
Data secure
Integrated across health care systems
Not too much information—just in time with the right information
Font or screen size readable—Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design compliant
Sustainable
Help for digital naïve
Does not reduce time with physician
Clear perceived benefit
Ability to personalize features and functions
Automated data entry

Principal Findings

This scoping review synthesized the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps designed to enable or support caregiver participation in care planning or care coordination. We identified key factors (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators) related to care planning and coordination. We described important functionalities and features enabling caregiver apps to meet care planning and coordination needs and facilitate caregiving activities. This comprehensive summary of caregiver needs related to health apps and care coordination may be useful to developers and researchers as it relates to caregivers of those living with MCCs. A better understanding of usability and overall needs will enhance ongoing research efforts to improve e-care planning and care coordination among these populations.

Of the 34 papers, representing 25 individual studies included in this review, only 3 were experimental or quasi-experimental intervention studies [ 28 , 38 , 44 ]. None of the studies included in this review focused on care planning, care coordination, or care recipients with MCCs. This paucity of research precluded generalizations about caregivers’ apps, much less in care planning and coordination. Although most of the studies included in this review addressed important caregiver factors including caregiver education, coping, and self-care, these standalone interventions lacked components to reduce caregiver burdens associated with planning and coordinating complex care. An app designed to specifically improve care planning and coordination, thus reducing this burden, is needed—particularly for the increasing number of care recipients with MCCs.

Most studies within this review were qualitative studies or pilot and feasibility studies. Yet, a few of these studies [ 26 , 30 , 35 , 45 ] identified elements important for care planning and coordination in mHealth apps. By definition, these studies are preliminary in nature thus precluding generalizations; they do not represent proven efficacy or settled science. However, they provide a foundation for future exploration of the role of mHealth interventions in promoting care planning and coordination.

Comparison to Prior Work

Our findings parallel and extend the results identified in a recent review focused on native apps for informal caregiving [ 61 ]. Native apps are apps residing on smartphones as opposed to web-based apps. The principal findings specific to native apps [ 61 ] align with our more comprehensive review (including both native and web-based apps) in that the nascent technology has not matured enough to make meaningful recommendations beyond that of caregiver needs and wants. More rigorous research is needed, specifically among caregivers of patients with MCCs.

In terms of caregiver needs associated with care planning and coordination, caregivers and care recipients in included studies identified several important areas of needs and wants including apps that delivered “one-stop-shopping” or all the information in 1 place. These needs and wants were similar to those identified by Margarido and colleagues [ 61 ] in their 2022 scoping review. The results from both indicated caregivers wanted apps that integrated with the health care system (including the EHR) and could allow them to complete questionnaires at home in an unrushed fashion. They wanted apps that could help them find care equipment and information about support services and support contacts. Relationships with health care providers and feedback from the providers were of key importance, as were timely reminders and prompts (eg, upcoming appointments and medication changes).

Future Directions

More research is needed as this scoping review did not identify any of the following: an app designed to provide access and enhance communication among caregivers, patients, and health care workers, with access for all 3 groups to the EHR; use of data standards in apps to promote interoperability of data across the care team, including caregivers and care recipients; a focus on care planning and coordination; a free and publicly available digital platform; or demonstration of successful usability, efficacy, and sustainability.

The potential exists for emerging mHealth apps to contribute to care coordination by linking caregivers, patients, and clinicians to information and resources that improve the ability of the entire care team to actively engage. Ongoing research focused on developing and evaluating [ 62 - 65 ] interventions to support caregiver engagement in health care through direct EHR access and other digital means could provide important insights. Today, mHealth app-facilitated care planning and coordination remains a possibility, not a reality. This scoping review provides further evidence that existing caregiver-facing mHealth apps are not sufficiently supported by research, with many studies focused on well-educated, tech-savvy female caregivers [ 30 , 37 , 50 ]. There is a need for app development to meet caregiver needs in diverse populations. Most such apps address the burdens of caregiving through interventions aimed at education, self-care, and stress reduction. Though these are helpful, they do not address the fundamental challenges related to care planning and coordination.

Current government federal policies encourage care planning and coordination. There is a federal mandate through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for third-party mHealth apps to integrate with the EHR. These technologies need to be implemented into current health care workflows, but data blocking and the inability to write back to the EHR present challenges. Current workforce shortages, especially for nurses, are well documented and may increase the difficulty of introducing new technologies and tasks, requiring both additional training and time from an already overburdened workforce. On the other hand, a well-designed app that facilitates information sharing, care planning, and communication could potentially reduce the burden.

Strengths and Limitations

We acknowledge several limitations of this study. First, papers included in the scoping review do not include work published after June 2021. It is possible our search terms failed to identify relevant papers in this rapidly developing field. Second, the review included only studies published in English. Though digital health literature is predominantly published in English, there is the possibility of missing important work in other languages. In keeping with guidelines for scoping reviews, we neither assessed the risk of bias nor methodologies in the included studies. Finally, the heterogeneity of included research precluded a meta-analysis of findings across all studies.

This scoping review synthesizes the current evidence on developing mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination, providing insights to inform future mHealth app development to engage caregivers as members of the health care team, share critical information across the entire health care team, reduce the burdens caregivers experience in trying to coordinate care, as well as identifying the functionality caregivers desired. Few experimental studies involving apps with needed functionality were identified in the scoping review, even though use of digital technology for caregiver support is a growing interest. We found no studies focused on care planning or coordination, and a very small number of pilot and other preliminary studies addressing specific aspects of care coordination, such as communication. Given the limited number of studies and the preliminary nature of many, there is insufficient evidence on mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination. However, the need and potential for further work to achieve these aims is substantial.

Conclusions

In sum, research and evidence on the effective use of mHealth apps to support caregivers involved in care planning and coordination for people living with MCCs is limited. Apps to support caregivers have yet to be integrated into the EHRs. Multidirectional communication between caregivers, care recipients, and health care providers through the EHR holds great promise for relieving the burden on clinicians, patients, and their caregivers alike. The development and implementation of an mHealth app linking the 3 key stakeholder groups to work together to [ 65 ] enhance care planning and coordination, remains an unmet need. Prior work on the functionality desired by caregivers can inform this work.

Acknowledgments

No generative artificial intelligence was used. The findings and conclusions in this document are those of the authors, who are responsible for its content, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), or the National Institutes of Health. No statement in this report should be construed as an official position of the AHRQ, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, or the US Department of Health and Human Services. This project was conducted with support from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation's Patient Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

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Abbreviations

Edited by T Leung; submitted 30.01.23; peer-reviewed by J Wolff, Y Chu; comments to author 27.05.23; revised version received 28.09.23; accepted 01.03.24; published 23.05.24.

©Marjorie M Kelley, Tia Powell, Djibril Camara, Neha Shah, Jenna M Norton, Chelsea Deitelzweig, Nivedha Vaidy, Chun-Ju Hsiao, Jing Wang, Arlene S Bierman. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 23.05.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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